A Very British Christmas

by Rhodri Marsden

  The best example of this is the John Lewis Christmas advert, which for the past decade has finely honed its early-November sales pitch into a message that’s emotionally devastating for anyone as easily manipulated as I am. For research purposes I’ve just spent the last half hour watching the last ten ads (from 2007 to 2016) back to back, and there’s been an embarrassing amount of bawling and leaning back in my chair with my head in my hands while saying ‘fucking hell’ a lot. It feels surprisingly similar to watching Love Actually (actually); I know that being emotionally affected by it is wrong, but for some reason going ‘waaaaah’ into a hanky seems the only plausible option. Watching the sequence of 2012’s Snowman’s Journey, 2013’s Bear and Hare, 2014’s Monty The Penguin and 2015’s Man On The Moon37 is as harrowing as breaking up with someone who you love deeply but who is about to relocate to the other side of the world to pursue their career. The John Lewis Christmas adverts are completely devastating in a way that makes you suddenly want to buy a nice set of cushions.

  ‘What’s driven us throughout the last ten years is this idea of going the extra mile to buy the right things for the people you love,’ says Craig Inglis, John Lewis’s customer director and one of the masterminds behind the strategy. ‘Christmas is an inherently emotional time, in the sense that people become more reflective and focus more on their loved ones. A lot of careful thought goes into the ad – it has to be the right story, an authentic one, that resonates with the audience. But every year we have a huge crisis of confidence. It’s like having a baby, showing it to people for the first time and hoping that they don’t think it’s ugly. On the morning it’s launched I sit there with bated breath, and it’s a huge sigh of relief when people like it.’

  Wind back 30-odd years, and the king of the British Christmas advert would have been the now defunct retail chain Woolworths, who blew what was probably a massive budget for the time on a production which now looks like a car-boot sale being run by a local amateur dramatic society. With a hefty dollop of tacky razzle-dazzle, pantomime regulars such as Anita Harris, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Windsor Davies hold up various goods to the camera and smile as if to say, ‘If you buy this, Woolies might pay my invoice.’ Ladies knitwear, tape decks, carriage clocks and rudimentary computer games were flogged by Woolworths in this upbeat, bombastic fashion, all fanfare and glitter, leaving the more sensual, whispery marketing pitches to sherry, perfume and chocolate brands.

  Lenthéric sold its Tweed fragrance with shimmering strings and a husky voiceover saying, ‘The perfume you’d choose for her is the perfume she’d choose for herself’ (highly unlikely), but the deepest emotion that a brand was prepared to evoke (i.e. not very deep at all) was found in the advert for Terry’s All Gold. To a romantic soundtrack, a well-off businessman phones home to his beautiful wife from a call box and tells her to open a drawer, where she finds a nicely wrapped chocolate assortment. ‘See the face you love light up with Terry’s All Gold’ went the song, although in this particular case the cheapskate bastard wouldn’t even see her face, as he was evidently spending Christmas getting pissed in a hotel in Chicago.

  Today’s emotionally overwrought sales pitches, from Aldi to PayPal to Sainsbury’s to M&S, are more sophisticated, more expensive and more successful than anything screened in the 1970s, 80s or 90s. ‘The assumed truth at that point was that you needed to shout about the product and the price,’ says Craig Inglis. ‘Glitz and glamour and celebrities, advertising by numbers. But the impact of today’s adverts is felt for a longer time.’ John Lewis scoops an £8 profit for every £1 of its Christmas ad spend, but they also accumulate an enormous amount of goodwill for having made people feel a bit weepy. ‘We’re more open to schmaltz at Christmas,’ says Dan Shute, CEO of advertising firm Creature of London. ‘Our guard drops. So Waitrose can make a beautiful advert about a robin struggling to get home, which makes absolutely no sense ornithologically speaking, and people will care deeply about it.’

  We might not like to admit how easily we can be emotionally manipulated, but the truth is that we prefer to be fed the fantasy rather than the reality of Christmas. ‘A couple of supermarkets recently tried making adverts that were all about the stresses of Christmas,’ says Dan, ‘and they both tanked. You could see the strategy behind them – you know, we don’t live in a soft-focused world, people are cynical these days – but it turns out that people just want to be happy. And the second you’re snarky about Christmas, people tell you to piss off, God love them.’

  “But whatever we give to Apollo he’ll end up eating the tinsel.”

  The amount that big brands spend on their adverts might seem outlandish, but the six-week lead-up to Christmas can make or break a retailer’s year. Firms of all sizes recognise the opportunity that Christmas brings, and they will put absurd Christmassy spins on their product ranges in the hope of snagging an extra sale or two. I’ve seen insurance companies running carol competitions, drones equipped with a ‘mistletoe cam’, the personal Christmas breathalyser, the festive meat thermometer, the Bluetooth selfie stick to capture cherished Yuletide moments… It’s exhausting. After all, there’s only so much money that can be spent – unless, of course, your credit card company raises your credit limit, encourages you to indulge yourself, and you feel too weak to refuse their supposed generosity.

  The Money Advice Trust estimated that 16 million of us put Christmas ‘on credit’ in 2016. This whole chapter has the ominous cloud of Christmas debt hanging directly over it, because every crafty sales technique or witty slogan will prompt a bunch of purchases by people who simply can’t afford what they’re buying. ‘People usually call us when they reach crisis point,’ says Alexandra Glasgow from the charity Debt Advice Foundation (DAF), ‘and it’s not usually just because of one bad Christmas. Our busiest month is January, as the credit card bills come in and people can’t meet the repayments.’ It’s telling that DAF’s quietest month is December; stark evidence that we make the decision to have a Christmas laden with treats, spend ourselves silly in pursuit of that dream and worry about it later. Tellingly, the first piece of advice issued by DAF in their tips to avoid Christmas debt is to talk about the imminent splurge with family and friends. ‘They are probably as worried as you are,’ it reads. ‘Agree some spending limits, and you’ll all feel better about spending less on each other.’ Many of us are in denial about the cost of Christmas, and being British we often pretend it’s all just fine.38

  In 2015, personal finance journalist Michelle McGagh set herself the challenge of reducing her household budget to something approaching zero, and wrote about her experience in a book called The No Spend Year. Christmas, needless to say, posed a particular difficulty. ‘We couldn’t do all the stuff that we’re told makes the perfect Christmas,’ she told me. ‘So we had a fake tree, no Christmas pudding, a present amnesty… It made me wonder – can you actually buy the spirit of Christmas? I mean, we’re sold it, but do we have to buy it? I don’t think you do, and it was a good lesson to learn. Everyone was really happy about the present amnesty, and the adults in my family did it again the following year. We knocked it on the head, we’re fine with it.’

  If you decide to scale things back and opt out of buying presents, you also manage to swerve the problem of those presents being wrong or broken. The value of unwanted gifts in Britain was around £2.6 billion in 2014, which represents one hell of a lot of receipts. That year, a third of us admitted to having received at least one unwanted present, but you can bet that the rest of us were just keeping quiet to avoid a difficult conversation about a smoothie-maker we didn’t need. The hurried purchase of alternative, placatory presents on Christmas Day has, in recent years, transformed that 24-hour period into just another online shopping day. We spent £728 million on Christmas Day 2015, much to our horror – because, again, we’re outraged at Christmas being despoiled. We’re indignant and curious at the same time; after all, maybe we’ll miss out on a cut-price gizmo if we don’t check. It’ll only take a second, righ
t?

  Like a call to prayer on the evening of Christmas Day comes the exhortation to resume shopping in the dead of night. The phrase ‘Half Price Matalan Sale Starts 5 a.m. Boxing Day’ is not one that has ever worked its magic on me; my alarm clock remains stubbornly unset and I’m conspicuous by my absence at the doors of Matalan as the bleary-eyed staff push them open, mumbling, ‘May God have mercy upon our souls’. It’s never been clear to me why Boxing Day is a good time to buy a three-piece suite or some bathroom lino, but the adverts have an almost conspiratorial tone, insinuating that you’d be stupid not to haul your hungover self to Carpetright while everyone else has a fart-punctuated lie-in. As a result, people still camp out overnight in car parks to achieve ‘great savings’ (which of course means ‘great spends’); on Boxing Day 2016 we spent around £3 billion on the high street, lured by the prospect of unmissable deals, interest-free credit or taking back the unwanted shite we were given the previous day. On Christmas Eve you might make a very solemn vow to never queue in Argos again, but two days later you’ll be back, obediently making your way to collection point B.

  Worthing, Christmas 1962

  Boxing Day was really important for us. It was for a lot of poor families I think. My mum was really resourceful, always looking for ways of getting quality stuff into a poor home, whether that was through classified ads or the sales. I remember we used to have lunch on Christmas Day at my grandmother’s, and then we’d get into the car and drive to the local department store, look in the window and see what was on sale the next day. One year there was this Minic Motorway, which was like a smaller version of Scalextric, at half price. Just the one. My dad said to me and my brother, right, we’ll come back in the morning. You run straight to the toy department and make sure you get it.

  Our family would be first in line. We’d run about, securing stuff, us in the toy department, my mum in the curtain department to get end-of-line samples to turn into cushions. We asked the sales assistant for the Minic, and he got it for us – but then a woman breezed in and said no, she wanted it for her son. Me and my brother were arguing with her, saying no, it’s ours, but she had all the authority. Then my mum turned up. She was a very kind, patient woman, but that was the first time I ever saw her get feisty with anyone. She stood her ground and she got us the Minic. Consequently, playing with it always came with this sense of triumph. ‘Yes! We got it!’ Actually, even my mum’s cushions had that vibe. You know, the sense that we were winning, because our family, out of necessity, knew how to work the system.

  T. M.

  During A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown experiences a typical moment of personal crisis as he wails, ‘Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about?’ He finds himself distressed by Snoopy entering a Christmas-lights competition to win a cash prize (‘my own dog, gone commercial’), his younger sister’s request to Santa to just send dollar bills (‘tens and twenties!’), and Lucy’s Christmas wish for ‘real estate’. Charlie Brown might have done himself a favour by worrying a little less; after all, Christmas means different things to each of us. There is no right answer. The act of handing over money in exchange for goods might seem highly unspiritual, but provided we’re not actively sabotaging our financial futures, buying things is OK. And not buying things is OK, too. In reply to Charlie Brown, Linus recites from Luke: chapter 2, verse 8, where the shepherds watched their flocks by night – and even if you’re not Biblically minded, his closing words sum up a Christmas theme that most of us could probably agree on: ‘And on earth, peace and goodwill toward men. That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.’

  Five Broken Limbs!

  Richie [having chopped his finger off while making Christmas dinner]: Bloody hell, Eddie! Help! Help!

  Eddie: Why? What have you done?

  Richie: I’d have thought that was fairly obvious, wouldn’t you?

  Eddie: Oh. That’s a bit of a nasty nick, isn’t it? Why don’t you call an ambulance?

  Richie: I haven’t got anything to bloody well dial with.

  Bottom, October (!) 1992

  As Andy Williams didn’t sing, but might have done had he worked in A&E, ‘It’s The Most Dangerous Time Of The Year’. Peril lurks around every corner. People swallow stuff they shouldn’t, fall off things with vigour and impale themselves on things they wouldn’t normally impale themselves on. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents puts the number of people visiting A&E over Christmas at around 80,000 and rising; a combination of crowded living spaces, random behaviour and the high-octane excitement of Pictionary can place an intolerable burden on the emergency services, and indeed the household first aid kit.

  Sheffield, Christmas 1987

  It was early on Christmas morning, maybe nine o’clock. I was 6 years old. My dad and I had started assembling a giant Lego galleon, the two of us on the living room floor with the instructions spread out. It was a tranquil moment. Suddenly there was a crash, and there was glass everywhere. My dad had his back to the bay window, and he shielded me from the majority of it, but the whole window had come in and he’d cut his head. For ages it wasn’t clear what had happened, but a few minutes later we saw a broken milk bottle amid all the glass. Someone had thrown it through our window, but we had no idea why.

  I remember my mum saying that it was probably someone who’d had a difficult childhood, someone who was angry that we were having such a nice time, and we shouldn’t be cross with them, we should feel sorry for them. For years I imagined that this poor, fictitious orphan girl had done it. But more recently I thought, hang on, they would have chucked that bottle a good 20 feet. And they had no idea if we were having a horrible Christmas or not! It’s more likely that it was just some guy who was a total dick.

  M. P.

  The sheer number of people requiring medical attention in December and January prompted the NHS to put out a leaflet in 2012 entitled ‘Keep Safe this Christmas’. It’s a pretty bleak document that gives the lowdown on how our risk of experiencing poisoning, flooding and homicide ramps up as soon as advent calendar windows start popping open. The burden on health services is pretty high at that time of year anyway; there are more cases of pneumonia, asthma and heart disease than you’d get in the summer holidays, while exciting new strains of virulent particles have us coughing, sneezing or rushing to the bathroom. If there’s going to be a national celebration where the whole family gets together, it would have made more sense to designate a week in August when everyone is feeling a bit more healthy. But it’s too late to change it now. Christmas is where it is, and germs love it that way.

  France, Christmas 2011

  One year the whole family headed out to my dad’s place in the south-west of France. On Christmas Eve my dad decided to go to midnight Mass, and on his return he barely made it into bed before the norovirus hit. He was rushing to the bathroom every five minutes to explode. I have no idea how the rest of us slept through it. On Christmas morning we were sobered by the news of my dad’s rough night and decided we’d postpone Christmas lunch until at least the evening. Well, it was only fair.

  Unfortunately, we all started falling like norovirus-primed dominoes. My mum and sister turned grey late morning and departed to their bedrooms with buckets. I succumbed next. By late afternoon, I felt a bit queasy and shuffled out of the bathroom saying, ‘Man down.’ I thought the worst was over, but I was wrong. I ended up under the shower, peeling off ruined clothes as I was handed fresh ones. Norovirus knows no embarrassment. My nan completely escaped the whole thing. She just sat there looking terrified as buckets and towels were carted around and the house filled with the smell of Domestos. It will be forever known as Shitmas.

  L. S.

  For the people whose job it is to look after us and make us better, it can be a stressful time. ‘In A&E, it’s insane,’ says Nia Bowen, a junior doctor working in the NHS in south Wales. ‘But everyone pulls together. Nurses bring Secret Santa presents, consultants bring in picnics from their own
Christmas table… but there’ll be so many emergencies to deal with on top of the usual background stuff. In the morning you can feel it building, because you know exactly what’s coming. You’ll have the same types of injuries coming in at each stage of the day.’

  “Stay calm, Peter, I’m just calling NHS Direct.”

  In the early morning, the last-minute wrapping of presents brings millions of scissors out of drawers, with the inevitable consequences for the terminally clumsy. But we really get going in the late morning as we whiz drunkenly around the kitchen, a hot, steamy room full of boiling fat, razor-sharp implements and precariously balanced kettles. ‘We’ll get food-preparation injuries from vegetable knives,’ says Nia, ‘scalds from accidents with microwaves… All sense seems to disappear over Christmas because people are so stressed.’

  Devon, Christmas 1998

  On Christmas morning we’d been over to my daughter’s to open presents and have a drink or two. When we came back I started cooking Christmas lunch. I was wearing a pair of stupid backless shoes with long pointed toes, the floor was a terracotta-tiled floor, and I was drinking champagne. I slipped while doing the potatoes, went flat on my face and landed very awkwardly on my arm. I felt rather pale and weak and retired to bed. I didn’t have Christmas lunch. A couple of days later I went to A&E and found out that I’d broken it. There were dozens of other people there, all slightly wounded and wincing. I felt like a walking cliché.