I was dreaming of a cancelled Christmas

I am on the record as being, if not a convicted seasonal denier, at least insufficiently Christmassy. Last year I interviewed Noel Gallagher for the Christmas cover of a magazine and we bonded over our mutual dread of what our American friends call, dispiritingly, holidays.

‘Christmas Day’s the longest day, longer than D-Day — and more stressful,’ he moaned. ‘You’re sitting there exhausted, thinking, “And it’s only 11 o’clock”.’

For the avoidance of doubt, I love Christmas trees, holly, mistletoe, church services, chestnut stuffing and mince pies. I do not love schlepping round the shops, all playing Slade on a loop, in the sleet buying things people don’t want, and the sense that if I don’t tingle with excitement at it all, I am failing in my Christian duty as a mother and patriot.

I resent the pressure, the entire gut- and wallet-busting commercial splurge. I tolerate it best as a guest, preferably of one of my sainted sisters-in-law, where I can be hailed as a saviour of all mankind for performing some limited but essential service on the day, like making the bread sauce or playing Scrabble with a maiden aunt.

Frankly, far from there being a ‘mutiny of mums’ if lockdown was extended to embrace Christmas (as one of the red-tops predicted), the tinselly silver lining of 2020 was going to be that the Great British Christmas was off. Computer — in the shape of the shroud- and graph-waving nerds of Sage and Whitehall — had said no. Because of Covid.

For once, a government restriction almost made sense to me after a year of almost vindictive illogicality (those under house arrest in isolation in care homes and the ban on tennis were only two of the things that broke me).