It is extraordinary to remember. When I was a small boy in Scotland, Christmas Day was not a holiday. My father almost closed his office, but someone was on duty. The main festivity was Hogmanay: not a holiday in England. Now the whole country closes down for a fortnight. A friend who is a serious industrialist says that far from afflicting productivity, this is a good thing. After two weeks, apart from those who have gone in search of sun or skiing, most people are fed up with family life. Even the brats cannot wait to get back to school. So his employees return to work with renewed vigour.
We started with oysters, followed by sashimi, then turbot, and for pud a chocolate mousse
Despite that, I have never known a year more overshadowed with apprehension and gloom. There appears to be only one major country where optimism prevails: the USA, courtesy of the re-elected President Trump. The American economy appears to be indestructible, buoyed by animal spirits. We must remember the vital unwritten items in the American Bill of Rights. First, that this year shall be better than last year, and next year shall be better than this year. Second, that each and every American shall have the right to work his or her butt off and keep a goodly proportion of the proceeds.
That makes one think of Jimmy Carter, who did not believe in either item. He was obviously a decent old stick, but he had no gift for uplifting his fellow Americans: cf. Keir Stumbler over here. President Carter had been a peanut farmer, and no doubt a competent one. In 1980, a bumper sticker was popular: Roast Jimmy’s Nuts. So the electorate did, calling into service instead a great and gracious president who made his fellow countrymen feel good about themselves.
We await a similar benefaction. I believe Kemi Badenoch has it in her and is actually in a better position than Margaret Thatcher was in 1975. But there is hard pounding ahead. In the interim, I noticed in the break that more of my acquaintances were going to more church services than I had expected.
If only the Church of England were in a better position to respond to its potential congregation’s needs. Clearly Justin Welby made mistakes, though the way some people are carrying on, one might have thought that he was personally responsible for child abuse. Poor C of E: can it be saved? A committee of 17 is now wrestling with the future. Perhaps the King could help.
In various households, I managed to deflect gloominess into gourmanderie. On Christmas Day, my hosts announced that they had followed my advice, which alarmed me. These were serious cooks. My sole role was to applaud, open bottles and eat. But a few years ago, I had praised some friends in Dorset who had decided to reshape the Christmas bill of fare.
So we started with some oysters, followed by sashimi, then turbot, and for pud a chocolate mousse which Joseph Conrad would have acknowledged. After such a light repast, everyone was up to a game of bridge.
In the evening, of course, we moved on to a proper meal. More oysters, but then beef wellington and a Christmas pudding which had been laid down 12 months previously and filled the dining room with the odour of brandy. By the end, extraordinarily enough, no one needed to be helped to bed.
The principal bottles to accompany all this were an outstanding New Zealand Chardonnay, Hunting Hill 2016 from the Kumeu River and plenty of Léoville Barton 2009. Between a number of us, we exhausted our supply of that splendid wine while raising toasts to the shade of a marvellous vigneron, splendid human being and staunch Anglophile, Anthony Barton. Was it sentimentality, the dawning of theological enlightenment or the 60-year-old tawny port which followed the claret? Whichever, we agreed that one strong argument for Heaven is that Anthony deserved no less.
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