Christmas

‘The first duty of the government is to keep citizens safe.’ These are the government’s own words. Yet, despite this almost sacred pledge, the four administrations of the UK have agreed to gamble on relaxing restrictions over Christmas, potentially rewarding Covid-19 with the biggest present of them all. With any gamble, there are stakes, risks and prizes. The stakes in this case are people’s lives — they could not, therefore, be any higher. As for prizes, there are several that officials seem to be eyeing up. First is the prize of perceived compassion: that citizens see a commitment to balance, moderation, and kindness after the pain of a very difficult year. This seems a noble intention.

I never expected to become a fake Rabbi. But this year, on Yom Kippur of all days, it happened. In the middle of the Pandemic, Jews were faced with the problem of marking the holiest day of the year without being able to meet up even for prayer. Communal prayer is a central feature of Judaism, especially on the day when we collectively atone for our sins. As the day approached, my family’s discussions (by FaceTime, of course) increasingly focused on how depressing it was going to be sitting at home alone, not eating. An idea quietly formed in my mind. What if I could put on some sort of Covid-safe substitute?

Just a couple of hours before President Trump announced that he and his wife, first lady Melania, had tested positive for coronavirus, the world was exposed to the so-called ‘Melania Tapes’. Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend of the first lady, released to CNN multiple recordings she took of her private conversations with Melania. Leftists who already despise the first lady raged about how she supposedly 'hates' Christmas and doesn't care about migrant children. However, the tapes actually revealed a deeply sympathetic and relatable figure belied by Melania's somewhat aloof and statuesque public persona. 'I'm working...my ass off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?

The neighbors got together for drinks and carols at the weekend. As an English Jew, I love the carols — all those old-time bangers from the time when midwinter really was bleak, all those Zionist lyrics about ‘royal David’s city’ and kings in Israel. I consider it a mitzvah, a religious obligation, to spread the joy, because there’s not enough joy to the world these days, so I play the piano, this year in an impromptu trio with an Irish American fiddler and an English literary critic who, it transpires, toots a mean descant on the trumpet. We spread the joy as a farmer spreads muck, but it’s the spirit that counts. Without rehearsal or premeditation, we turned ‘Silent Night’ into a Dean Martin drunk song.