holly thumbed into place. My mother took on a new countenance. Gone was the neurotic ear slapping she-devil of old. Here was the apotheosis of womanhood. Man was relegated to the blubbering ranks of the newborn or to a bumbling, white-bearded, stuck up the chimney sort of avuncularity. This was the time of the Goddess and for this brief period at least - not forgetting that other season of celebration, namely my birthday - I worshipped at the adored feet.
The begging-bowl of Guy-Fawkes was about to be changed for the more respectable collection plate of the caroller. Eddy and myself, with his older brother Reg for protection, and other too numerous to mention imitations of the Dickensian waif descended, like a flock of discordant cherubs, onto the hapless population. Partakers of pre-Christmas, drug-induced snoozes, were about to be rudely awoken. After a nerve-shattering volley of knocks against the intervening door, a perfunctory chorus of Adeste Fideles rang out from the cracked bell of our tremulous voices. Suspicious bleary eyes peered from the chinks in the curtains, then disappeared again. A nervous shuffling of feet ensued. “Shall I knock agin Merv,” inquired Eddy. “Praps we should try annuva chorus first,” I said, sheepishly. “Alright then afta free,” said Eddy’s brother. “One, two, free!” ........... “Why don’t you effing kidspiss orf,” countered the staggering, light-bathed, apparition in the rifted doorway. “We’re singin’ fer the church mista,” I profaned. “Yer don’t look like choirboys te me,” said the unusually astute low-browed adversary. “It’s the truf,” I muttered. “We’re collectin’ fer the old folks Christmas party, aint we lads.” “That’s right mista,” came the for once unified, and as it happens, somewhat ecumenical response. “Clear orf, ‘fore I set the dog on yers!” was all we got by way of charity from that legless representative of Proto-Christianity. If alms were to be obtained we should have to try elsewhere. As we left the lamp-lit streets of the estate and moved off into the outback our beaming elf-like faces dimmed accordingly. Don’t for one moment think that we were the acme of carol-singers. We weren’t. To have been rigged out in scarves, gloves and tossel-hats, would have offended our sense of sartorial decorum. Well-scuffed, grey-flannel trousers, frayed wooly-jumpers smelling of mothballs, and the navy-blue balaclava were by far the most favoured apparel. If you’re thinking in terms of swinging lanterns swung from the ends of beribboned poles – beware, you may well be romanticizing! Candles we had in plenty, matches by the pilfered box-full. But matches, candles, and damp December winds are not - it would appear - allies! Tenacious little brutes that we were, we persevered. The striking of matches, the flickering into life and guttering out of it again of candles, intermittently illuminated the darkness. During the blacked-out eternities, made almost palpable by this unreliable source of light, could be heard the snuffing pinch of licked and sticky fingers and thumbs as stubborn wicks and hot wax took their toll. Eventually, sheltered from the wind by an enormous privet-hedge, we stood in front of one of those desolate plotland properties. Matches were struck again, candles lit and throats cleared. We decided to be more traditional and sang a verse or two before we knocked. This had the desired effect. The old lady of the house was actually pleased to see us! She asked if we’d like a glass of ginger beer and a mince pie each, which we gratefully accepted. “ And who are you collecting for dears?” she asked, and in that season of ‘peace and goodwill to all men’ - and old ladies, incidentally - I drew on the latent wellspring of my as yet unfathomed humanity. “Fer ourselves,” I gushed. Could it be true? Were all those parables to be believed? She gave us thruppence each and wished us all a very merry Christmas. Doubts had been cast and that age-old struggle between good and evil was to commence anew. To be, or not to be - honest - that is, that was the question. We came as close as a rabble could to taking a vote on the matter; and for the sake of our newborn - as opposed to born-again spirituality - honesty was decided upon. But in actuality - as all liberal, freethinking philosophers will concur - every case had to be treated individually. Moral philosophy - even then - was a treacherous subject. To this day I am still susceptible to its many pitfalls. To my mind the only really black and white issue - existentially speaking - concerns the renewal of my television licence. But that’s another story, as the bishop said to the lady in the detector-van! Whatever, whether requests for alms were based on truth or falsehood, faith or doubt, carol singing was as much a part of the season as tangerines and red-nosed reindeer. That glimmering band of hopeless youth travelled the shadowy byways of December confronting remuneration or rebuke in the same wholehearted manner. Christmas was coming. Yea, verily I say unto to you; Christmas was near upon us!
According to custom, decorations should not be put up until Christmas Eve. As my parents will tell you this is a custom that’s pretty near impossible to adhere to. I think I first started to pester my mother with regards to this seasonal activity - in those less than liberated days fathers had little to do with the process - sometime around Bonfire-Night. Her way of coping with such insistent demands was to shut me in the spare-room with a toppling stack of those coloured strips of paper gummed at one end. There with a tongue as taut and tacky as a glue-maker’s jockstrap, I licked my way through seemingly endless miles of paper-chains. Most of which were never to come into contact with the ceiling, by the way. But I didn’t care. This was an important task. Christmas depended on me. The time came of course - long before the date traditionally adhered to - when the decorating began in earnest. Little of today’s dazzling array of mass-produced metallic gimmickry was available. Coloured coils of frilly crepe paper were to be unfurled and twisted into spirals. Chinese-lanterns were to be concertinaed into position. Balloons, long and thin, round or pear-shaped, were jaw-achingly puffed into existence, then pinned to the ceiling to display all of their titter-inducing, Phallic similitude. The tree - then as now - was the centrepiece of that extraordinary pagan ritual. On arrival it was immediately potted and set on a small table. This was the pièce de résistance. Like an ancient Druid in his sacred grove I communed with the spirits of Christmas past, and even earlier. It was a shrine to the god Pan. The Holy Babe but a contemporary manifestation of a far older, far deeper, spiritual hunger. The spirit of the wildwood was indoors. The faint atavistic echoes of tree-bound dryads exuded from every resinous needle. I danced goat-footed around that tree. I poured libations of cherryade and Tizer. I placed gift-wrapped, symbolic offerings at the roots of my shamanistic inheritance. Tinsel was cheap and skinny in those days - and still somehow appropriate to the chilling memories of our ghostly antecedents - but even then the flickering shadows of our future opulence fell from the flashing beacons of electric fairy-lights. But as yet the past was still with us as Christmas and Yuletide strove between carols and wassails to authenticate our mysterious origins. As I struggled on tiptoe to equip the tree with its surmounting star, I could feel the accumulated weight of different wisdoms as magi and priest vied for ascendancy.
For those to whom Christmas Eve is just the culmination of a prodigal season of humbug and hypocrisy, it would perhaps be advisable to skip a paragraph or two. For me Christmas Eve was the quintessence of a delirious, emotional, and imaginative unreality. Even the dreaded mass took on a new, and magical, midnight significance. The day started in a dream and ended likewise. There was no place for ambivalence. Belief was to be absolute. The house was aglow with expectancy. The grate was banked higher than usual and out of the glimmering embers flames of gold, amethyst, and methylated blue roared up the air-sucking chimney. Why I never made the connection between ascending flames and descending Father-Christmases I’ll never know. Imaginative truth, I suppose. Decorations spun and swayed and twinkled in the heat. Misted windows trickled with glittering condensation and strings of greetings-cards displayed their compliments in various styles of red and green calligraphy. Holly prickled from the picture-rails; fruited in scarlet for that stirrup-cupped, horn-blowing revelry of a fox-bolted gallop of a day. Mistletoe was pendulous with impending kisses and I was at my long-spitting and lip-wiping best. On that day of delectable days even the once detested chore of helping with the shopping was volunteered for. At that slaughterhouse of a shop - euphemistically known as the butchers - carnage, carnivorous and carnival all came etymologically together in an unspeakable display of fur, feathers and flesh. Hung turkeys with scraggy necks glared their belated disapproval. Peter Rabbit’s less literate and sophisticated cousins were closer that they’d ever been to a relationship with Baby-Bunting. Geese were honk-less, chickens devoid of cluck, and pigs without bodies grinned inanely at the expiring bite of sour apples. All of that meant nothing to the worm-slicing, wing-plucking, environmental scourge that I was. What to others might seem a veritable charnel house was to me no more than