‘Tis the Season

The BBC reveals that a poll suggests that loads of people in the UK don’t know the story of Christmas.

More than a quarter of adults in Britain do not know where Jesus was born, a survey has suggested.The poll found that 27% of people were unable to identify Bethlehem as his birthplace, rising to 36% of people aged between 18 and 24.

The questions seemed to be:

1. Where was Jesus born?
2. Who told Mary she was up the duff?
3. Where did Mary, Joseph and the little’un flee to?
4. Who was John the Baptist?

All of which are yes, technically to do with the nativity story, but they’re not exactly the core of it, are they (apart from maybe the first). I wonder what would have happened if they’d asked:

1. What was Jesus’s mum called?
2. Was there any room at the inn?
3. How many kings?
4. What were their presents?

In fact, if you want to have a go at the quiz, stick around until after the jump, or take the ‘Tis alternative nativity quiz from a few years back.

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Rather than spend time writing a post today about the impending festive season, when we could be out shopping for vast amounts of food and plastic crap and spangly party dresses and whatever else the adverts tell us we need, we’ve decided to point you instead to this excellent and funny post by Sir Cliff Jones, formerly of this parish, about being vegetarian at Christmas:

I have no beef (See? Genius.) with vegetarian meals, but usually they are some kind of pasta, rice or pastry/dough thing. That doesn’t scream out Christmas to me, and none of them have much place among the potatoes, parsnips, swede, sprouts, yorkshire puddings, yams, carrots, peas, beans and whatever else

You can thank us later. He funny man.

Another year, another Christmas season rolls around, and with it, another sackload of posts from Meg and Anna and their little striped-stockinged helpers about how to get through the holidays, right?

Well, not quite.

This year, we’re not promising to post every day - heck, we’re barely promising to post at all. Life seems to be getting in the way a bit, frankly.

But we’ve spruced the place up for the upcoming festivities, just in case anyone happened to drop in, y’know?

There’s some wine mulling on the stove, and a mullah whining on the sofa.

We’ve got the nativity set out, and have conformed it to health and safety and community participation guidelines by removing anything which might have someone’s eye out (halos, stars, straw etc), de-saturating the religious content, reassigning roles to confound gender or ethnic stereotyping and generally bringing he whole thing up to date a bit. So now we’re left with a teenage mother and her bastard child sitting in a shed, surrounded by queens.

We’re already making eyes at the mince pies, and someone’s already put Now That’s What I Call A Fuckawful Christmas Album on the stereo.

So you’ve got two options - and in the spirit of giving generously, we think you can have your Christmas cake AND eat it (because otherwise, what would be the point of having cake at all?).

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Between the hangover from the party the night before (or the one from the night before that, or indeed, from any of the preceeding nights of gregarious wassailing) and the fact that nobody’s really in the mood because you know that as of about 4pm you’ll be gloriously released into Christmasness for days and days of overeating and consumerism and crap telly (so there’s not really any point starting that report or organising that meeting, is there?) the day before the Christmas holiday begins is overwhelmingly underproductive.

Really, it’s a wonder the economy doesn’t fall apart.

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And with that in mind, we have decided to provide you with a template which, inevitably, we will all be using in a few years time.

‘Hello, you have got this email because you are on XXXXX or XXXX’s contacts list.

If you do not know who either of these people are, please delete this email.

If you consider yourself an acquaintance, please click the link below to view a christmas card.

If you consider yourself to be a friend or family, please click on the link below, print it out and display on your mantlepiece.

We love you!!! Happy holidays etc.

Insert-name-here and insert-partner/spousal/pet-name-here.’

Cliff says:

I went to a carol service recently. I hadn’t been to one in ages and it was great. It really was, and I haven’t said or sung anything in church in nearly 10 years.

A few ground rules for carol singing, though, which I had forgotten. The word “heaven” is usually one syllable. Sing two and you’ll find yourself half a step behind the congregation. Same with the word “over” - one syllable: “o’er”. “Gathering”, though, that’s two, as is “fuel”.

“Gloria” is thirty three syllables and “Maria” is five, unless you’re singing West Side Story, in which case you’re in the wrong place. If that happens, try to pass it off like you did it on purpose and walk out slowly with your friends, snapping your fingers with intent as you make your way to the door.

I don’t mean any offence over the carol singing thing, honest. I found the carols beautiful and enchanting. Especially the Latin ones.

Outlandos d’amour harmonica plectrum dominos minibus….

Bobbie says:

Each year it’s the same old story, as the music charts go ga-ga over the race to top the pops and some Stilton-voiced Disc Jockey unveils the answer to the biggest question of the season: who has managed to be Christmas Number One.

Fair enough, those popstrels who make it to the summit deserve a little sunshine in their lives. But step away from the bright lights for a moment and think instead of those poor, unlucky people who don’t have a best-selling single to celebrate this yule. You know what I’m saying: what about those forgotten Christmas Number Twos?

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Anna says:

Weaving through the streets, laden down with bags of consumerisms and consumables (and consumable consumerismables), the hoardes of Christmas shoppers have always, even at the best of times, been as graceful on the move as a herd of buffalo in full-leg casts. A herd of buffalo in full-leg casts carrying shopping.

Groaning with Yuletide Mirth and grumbling with Festive Cheer, the solid, sweaty mass of joy-givers move through the city streets, elbowing, shoving and pushing anyone that gets in their way with ill-disguised Tidings of Comfort and Joy.

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Meg says:

It’s not because your family and friends don’t like you: it’s because Christmas and Crapness go together like the holly and the ivy.

The kind of Christmas crap you may receive this year fall into four distinct categories:

Novelty Crap
This genre of useless things is mostly made of plastic, probably fabricated in South East Asia somewhere, and may well require batteries. It might play music, or spit sparks, or stagger across the table when wound up. It may be oversized, undersized or otherwise comical. It will probably feature vivid coloours, stickers on plastic, and may include some reference to the recipients age/ sexual prowess/ intelligence. It’s the kind of thing that is usually associated with Secret Santa schemes in which people who don’t know each other very well have to spend a small amount of money on a token gift. In this case, and in fact in the case of most novelty gifts, you’ll wish that the giver had just stuck a nominal sum in an envelope instead.

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Cliff says:

People who call Christmas “the holidays” annoy British people. Holidays in the UK are things that you go on with passports and loved ones.

“Are you going home for the holidays?”

No, I go home from the holidays.

If I’m going on holiday, I’m leaving home, unless I have mistakenly booked two weeks in my lounge, in which case I really need a holiday.

Holidays is a lazy term that covers Hanukkah and Christmas and you’re sending out a blanket greeting. “Happy Holidays, whatever you are.” Or it’s an impersonal greeting for someone who you’re not too fussed what they believe in, in which case why would you issue a greeting anyway?

Next time someone asks me what I’m doing for the holidays, I will ask them to be more specific about the holiday in question, and then get all offended, but leave them in the dark. “Oh, I’m Jewish (or Christian)? What, because I look Jewish (or Christian) to you. And what do Jewish (or Christian) people look like? I could be Christian (or Jewish) for all you know.” Then I’ll storm off.

What am I doing for my holidays? Eating the food, opening the present and watching the TV.

Christmas is Christmas. Christmas ain’t something else.