I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s nearly Christmas. There are very few signs to warn you of its approach – it would be handy, for example, if everything you saw and heard in the media for the last two months had involved a Christmas related song, perhaps – but I have checked and it’s coming at the end of this week.
We all know what that means. There will be trees and presents and cake, and the law will turn a blind eye to breaking-and-entering offences committed by overweight bearded pensioners in unlikely red outfits. But where does Christmas come from? You don’t know, so prepare your thanks because I’m about to tell you.
Christmas is the eldest child of Father Christmas, born in December 1955 in Lapland. Father Christmas himself is, of course, the nephew of Zeus. After spending a happy childhood in the snowy reindeer-filled northern reaches of Finland, young Christmas left home and travelled to Liverpool in the hope of landing a role in Brookside.
The lack of an authentic scouse accent prevented that dream from becoming a reality, and a few years later Christmas was working in a branch of M&S where a toy sale coincided with the accidental delivery of too many frozen turkeys. The marketing opportunity was obvious. Parents were persuaded to get their kids some knock-off toys and treat themselves to a slap-up turkey lunch (pictured) by Christmas’s dad, whose booming voice and hypnotic catchphrase “ho” entranced the crowds at the Uttoxeter department store.
Today those traditions have spread far beyond Uttoxeter and the surrounding villages of Willslock, Dagdale and Spath. Now we can all enjoy the warm glow of buying some knock-off presents for each other and eating a type of meat that, at any other time of year, we’d avoid in favour of something that didn’t have the flavour and texture of teatowels. Hurrah.
In celebration of the big day, which is definitely some time this week but I’m not 100% sure when, please enjoy this Twitter thread of dreadful Christmas dinners. Thank you.
12 comments on “The history of Christmas”
Are teatowels popular at the moment? I’m always on the lookout for a new business venture and this sounds like a food van waiting to happen.
Teatowels are as popular as ever. In a constantly changing world they are a reliable benchmark of popularity. People always need to dry their dishes, you see.
To eat, though? No. Not popular. Still eclipsed by equally dry and taste-free turkey.
The only teatowel I know about is that David Bowie’s Big Boy Runaround towel I made for you many moons ago. Other than that, I dry my dishes the old fashioned way; holding them up in the air and riding down a large hill in a toboggan.
That’s a slow method, but also a satisfying one. We do the same for our clothes, drying out every sock and trouser one by one in the laundry sledge.
It’s fun but unnecessary, like a washing line for bacon.
Do you take turns pushing the other person down the hill?
Yes. It takes forever, but it’s so worth it. But we don’t do that with our dishes, the risk of breakage is just too high. Do you have a lot of smashed crockery on this large hill of yours?
It’s Newcastle. If you’re not constantly surrounded by broken crockery you’re in a different county altogether.
I didn’t know that was a thing. Good job you told me. I’ll make a note to pack some shards when I come to visit.
“Time to the hit the ole shardy dusty trail,” people would say.
“Don’t forget your shards, Jim” they would also say.
“Kids today don’t know what a real shard looks like,” old people would say.
Did they ever say sayings that involved both shards and bells?
Oh yeah, not a day goes past without someone chuntering on about the two. Take Flandra Moonstone. Yesterday she said, “gosh, these winds are blowing all the shards and keeping the rats away, it’s going bells.”
She says a lot of things. I think she’s on the sauce.