What are the ingredients for the perfect Christmas Day? A survey of 2,000 people, conducted by Onepoll, has the answers – or, rather, it has some rather saccharine ideas about what the average Briton thinks makes the perfect Christmas. However, speaking as the voice of experience, I’m afraid I can tell them they have got quite a lot wrong.
Allegedly, the average Briton thinks their ideal Christmas involves waking at 8am, having a glass of fizz at 10.28am, with smoked salmon sandwiches, unwrapping 13 presents, sitting down to lunch at 2.30pm, followed by board games straight after – all set against a background of four inches of snow.
These people also want to fit in at least two festive films during the course of the day, all those assembled watching these together. It’s a pleasant enough fantasy, but let me put them straight. These ideals will not work for the following reasons: for digestive reasons, for shortage of daylight reasons and for the main reason – the elephant in the room. Or, to be more precise, the curmudgeon in the room.
In every Christmas household, there is a curmudgeon who can be counted upon to disrupt the best-laid plans. The curmudgeon at the feast is represented either by a grumpy old man – dyspeptic at the best of times, but worse when stuffed with too much food and drink – who grumbles about his routine being disrupted or how much everything is costing.
Then, we have the surly teenagers who don’t want to put their screens down and join in – the whole concept of “team spirit” having become unfamiliar to modern gadget slaves. And then you have the new super-curmudgeons, the vegans and the green warriors, who disapprove of all the treats prepared for them by their kind host, but who delight only in pointing out the inherent cruelty to animals or the carbon footprint of the presents underneath the tree.
So here it is, then – my curmudgeonly guide to the “perfect” Christmas. You’d better watch out, you’d better not cry…
