13. How to Christmas
Do you have the feeling that Christmas is just a LARP? Do you worry the perfect Christmas is always happening elsewhere? Do you find the pressure to have a good time overwhelming? Would you rather just be on your own?
Well you’re doing Christmas wrong.
What we need to do is establish and maintain a ritual space that sits outside the mundane, and to achieve this we propose the following steps:
Go to church, either the night before or in the morning - it is no surprise that Christmas without Christ feels a bit weird and empty
Follow this with some healthy outdoor activity, working with your hands, getting muddy and uncomfortable - a feast if you’re not hungry is weird, and it’s great for male bonding and general communing with the seasons
If possible, have a critical mass of people present to keep the revelry going throughout the day - people peaking and crashing at different times, and on different points of the alcohol cycle, general chaos. Perhaps it’s even worth reaching out to your extended family…
Don’t overthink the lunch - a roast lunch is actually pretty simple to pull off, so focus on the basics and enjoy yourself, and even if you screw it up everyone’s drunk so won’t notice or, at worst, will find it funny. But also don’t suffer alone - people want to help with the cooking, and it’s actually another great social bonding tactic
Accept tradition, don’t fight it. Christmas needs rituals. In fact, it needs:
Leadership - someone has to stand up and say what everyone’s doing, what the rituals are, and then everyone else will slot in behind that, relax and have a great time
Confidence - don’t keep second guessing yourself or apologising. Do what you’re going to do, do it your own way, and do it with confidence.
Interestingly we hardly mention presents at all.
Selected Wikipedia references: Beer can chicken. Chibuku. Lady Day. The Rites of Passage.