6 days Ago By Evening Standard
It’s November and I’m standing on the street with one of my neighbours looking up at our building. “It’s a disgrace,” says Sam, shaking his head. We’re watching the lights twinkle on a Christmas tree above us.
“I know,” I smile. It’s November and the silver-tipped fir is mine.For the first time in my life I’ve gone all out for Christmas, early, and unsurprisingly mine is the first Christmas tree in any window on our street.
I’ve decided to have a slow Christmas, for several reasons, and it started the day after Halloween. I don’t know why it took me so long to realise that doing Christmas in November was a lot more fun, partly because you’re not supposed to I don’t know why it took me so long to realise that doing it all in November was a lot more fun, partly because you’re not supposed to - which says a lot about my personality - but also because the last-minute Christmas rush-around for presents is never as festive as we tell ourselves it’ll be. Last year, having travelled a lot for work in the months leading up to it and finally settling back home a week before the big day, it seemed pointless to get a tree, so I didn’t.
My flat looked like it did any other month of the year, and I thought that would be liberating, to shun silly commercialism and refuse Christmas expense completely, but it wasn’t. It was just kind of sad. Instead of going back to my parents’ house in Bath, it being up in the air as to whether my brother and his new wife would be there that year for the first time and I would be the only single one, yet again (plus I was travelled-out anyway and didn’t fancy a rammed flight of Christmas cheer), I decided to stay where I was.
Then I realised the Grinch-aspect of not even having a tree to look at on Christmas morning was too much and so accepted an invite to a sometime-friend-with-benefits mum’s house for Christmas lunch. That was actually very fun, but weird – especially now her son and I are not in contact and she essentially hosted a complete stranger on Christmas day. This year is all change.
It’s the first year that I’ve been in love at Christmas for five years and not having to cuff-date for loneliness reasons has brought something new to my old Grinch heart. On the first day of November, my boyfriend, who’d faithfully carved a pumpkin the night before and then faithfully threw it in the bin so we could start Christmas, and I put up our first tree, threw a vat of mulled wine on the stove, found the least awful Spotify Christmas playlist and carved a roast ham. Then we watched Paddington 1 and 2 back-to-back (“Really?” said my boyfriend and then laughed all the way through and asked whether we should try to download Paddington Peru somehow).
We got warm-wine drunk under heated throws and realised there was something luxurious about having a tree up this early. Plus there were the advent calendars to open each morning – for wine and whisky and Molton Brown goods – and in the miserable and irritating month that is November (most famous for ASBO kids getting firework-happy) that was extremely welcome. By November, people start fearing Christmas and all the stress and argument and everything else so setting it up this early was freeing.
I figured a slow Christmas was better for the mind and soul (and I felt like I was playing catch-up on the previous year and was owed a double whammy now) but it was also being pushed by a new lifestyle more common for a lot of people. “The world is my office,” says Joanne in , whilst working from bed, which had remained a regular choice of mine it’s just that the beds were now all over the world and summer had extended right through to October because if I could work in the sun, why would I choose to work in the rainy UK? There was something unique about going all mysig (the new Hygge) when you finally returned and saw the winter lights were already shining on lampposts. Plus, it was dark at 5pm, so mysig was all that was left now.
This was also the first year that I’d bonded all the neighbours in my flat and it was on me to host a Christmas drinks party. I had festive responsibility for the first time and I was high on it. In fact, I got so high on Christmas in the first week of November that I tried to order a goose for dinner and was told I was told it was far too early.
If one of the flock was killed now, the rest would go into mourning and not put on enough weight for anyone else’s Christmas lunch to be joyful. How tragic is that? “Christmas in November has hurdles,” I told my boyfriend, slumping down on a mound of heated throws. “Have you opened today’s advent calendar door?” he asked.
“Oh! No!” I squealed, my excitement returned..
