In praise of Christmas creep

Where were you when you were reminded that Christmas was looming? This year for me it was mid-October in a Tesco Metro in Cambridge, when sleigh bells began jingling ominously through the PA over an advert for extra Christmas staff. 

Like so many women involved in the Sisyphean daily juggle of children, home, the family diary — plus that other thing we need to do, earn a living — this is a trigger for the first meltdown of the season. And the clocks hadn’t even gone back. Similarly, my middle child observing that “I can’t believe it’s only two months until Christmas” at a particularly tense juncture almost had me bursting into tears.

‘Christmas creep’ isn’t new and I don’t believe that it gets earlier each year. I remember vividly, as a child in the late 1980s, the sight of garish artificial tinsel trees in a local garden centre — in August.

And this will be controversial to many readers, but I don’t think Christmas creep is a bad thing. Because Christmas, with its multiple lists, Nato-level planning, shopping, cooking, booking tickets, writing cards, sending packages, putting up the tree, largely falls to me. And so the earlier I get a kick up the backside to start thinking about it, the better.

Traditionalists will say that Christmas shouldn’t start until Advent and go on until Candlemas. I’m heartily in favour of the latter as I can excuse the presence of dusty decorations on the grounds that I’m simply being an observant Catholic. But as for those stentorian voices insisting that it doesn’t kick off until 1 December — well, I’d wager they’ve never had to fill stockings for three children, address 100 cards, buy for multiple relatives, friends and godchildren or make sure they have all 35 ingredients for Delia Smith’s Creole Christmas cake in the larder.

Frankly, thinking about Christmas fills me with fear and the prospect of what one friend calls a “nervy b” (nervous break­down) over getting it all done in time, not to mention remembering the school Christ­mas Fayre, nativity, carol service, brass band concert and Christmas Jumper Day, all while maintaining a semblance of sea­sonal cheer. Sadly, joy doesn’t get a look-in until I’ve broken the back of my to-do lists.

Due to the demands of magazine dead­lines, I started thinking about this column while my children were carving pumpkins and am writing it during the second week of November. I have managed to do a grand total of precisely two Christmas things: bought one stocking present and picked up an order form from the butcher (not yet filled in). Oh, and I grabbed some of those natural-coloured glacé cherries for the cake in the supermarket the other day as they tend to sell out and I find the lurid red ones spooky.

I don’t like it this way: I want to sail into Advent wafting good cheer and pine-scent­ed Diptyque room spray, anticipating the birth of our Lord with a glad heart, not fret­ting because I’m going to miss the last post­age date for North America.

So how to wrest control of this situa­tion? The answer is to embrace the Christ­mas creep. Be thankful for it. Let me share with you a WhatsApp exchange between my friend Emma and me last night:

“Have you finished your Christmas stuff?” I reply. “I hate you. No, I get it done and wrapped by end of Nov. Too many pres­sure points and work stuff in Dec.”

This galvanised me into at least going up into the attic to locate the Christmas boxes.

There, in the quiet and dark, the first thing I spied in the first box I opened was the children’s Christmas books — and there, on top, as if left there by the Good Lord, was Margaret Tarrant’s The Story of Christmas with her exquisite cover illustration of Our Lady kneeling by the infant Jesus in his manger, light and peace radiating through the dark night.

As I picked it up and turned the pages, I felt a sense of calm returning, of childish excitement, that elusive joyful anticipation beginning to flow as I thought about reading it again this Advent with my young daugh­ter, who adores the pictures of baby Jesus. Her older brothers, whose Christmas lists (already written; stealing a march on me here) detail the guitar cases and games con­soles they would like, will invariably gravi­tate towards us and sit and listen, still, silent, spellbound.

The list-making starts tonight. I’ve bought a pack of three spiral-bound reporter’s note­books, for food, presents and cards. I will look up last posting dates and write them in my diary in red and attempt to emulate Emma by getting the bulk of the shopping and wrapping done by the end of November. 

I don’t expect to attain these dizzy heights of organisation in my first year but it does mean that on the first Sunday of Advent I’ll be able to listen to and reflect on the read­ings at Mass and look forward to what’s to come, knowing that whatever I might have failed to do, my Christmas admin is on point.