yo ho ho
Being an old f*rt who lives his life in the past, it will come as no surprise that, as the festering period approaches, I naturally seek out the company of my two favourite Christmas characters, George Bailey and Ebenezer Scrooge. Frank Capra’s irresistible Christmas carol to the everyday decencies of American small-town life, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’, sees James Stewart in the role of George Bailey, about to end it all before being saved by trainee angel, Clarence, who gains his wings in the process. The very essence of black-humour, it’s not the schmaltzy, saccharine affair you may think it’s going to be and beneath the festive sentimentality, Bailey is in a constant ‘good vs evil’ & ‘collective vs individual’ battle, forever sacrificing his dream of freedom for the greater good. This year I even treated myself (and my good lady) to seeing it on the big screen for the first time, before realising that it was on BBC1 on the same day and at the same time. Doh. There wasn’t a dry-eye in the house and if you ain’t seen it, you ain’t ever enjoyed a proper Christmas.
A far more British Christmas is conjured-up by Alistair Sim’s portrayal of Charles Dicken’s Victorian festive favourite, ol’ Ebenezer Scrooge. As warm as a mince-pie tea in front of a blazing hearth, his miserly humbuggery is something I’ve taken to my heart and live-out for 364 days of the year, only making amends on the glorious 25th. Often copied but never bettered (even by Michael Caine in the Muppets Christmas Carol!), his giddy Christmas day ‘second chance’ performance, granted to him via his ex-business partner, Jacob Marley, just has to be witnessed – over the top and completely unbelievable? Yeah, of course, it’s a movie! But both films got me thinking as to where the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future really came from.
The notion of celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, as opposed to his death or ascension, isn’t actually recorded until about 300 years after he was reputedly dead. The earliest celebrations took place in Rome, in midwinter, in the midst of a great pagan feast & legendary p*ss-up, Saturnalia. And it has precious little to do with the accepted birthday on the 25th December as, if you believe the Bible’s narrative of the shepherd’s watching their flocks and the Bethlehem census, most, if not all, the reported events would have taken place in mid-summer as opposed to mid-winter. More July than January! More recently, historians working on the premise of the conception of John the Baptist, suggest it was more likely an early autumn birth. Nonetheless, the December choice appears a universally happy one in that we in Europe had celebrated the winter solstice for millennia and there was plenty of fermenting fruit and grain to be guzzled and little work necessary out in the fields. As was always the case, and on that note I raise a glass to one and all, cheers!
