Christmas

There's always one. One colleague, friend or family member who starts banging on about Christmas months in advance. One smug person who risks a punch in the face for boasting 'I've done all my Xmas shopping' before the clocks have gone back. Thanks all the same but I don't want to know how many days it is until December 25. I have no interest in seeing the M&S festive range. And I have zero appetite for a sneak preview of the John Lewis Christmas ad. Don't get me wrong, I love Christmas and all that it entails. The bulging stocking (yes, my mum still does this), the tin of Quality Street, the massive over-eating. And it's particularly special now my niece is old enough to enjoy it.

When I moved to London, my husband Henry gave me a copy of Kate Fox’s Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour. He was hoping the gift would avoid an awkward conversation about our cultural differences. As an American, I cannot think of anything more English than that. Fox’s chapter about introductions bothered me. The brash American approach: ‘Hi, I’m Bill from Iowa,’ particularly if accompanied by an outstretched hand and a beaming smile, makes the English wince and cringe. I had never known friendliness to be cringeworthy. I felt sorry for Bill from Iowa. I pictured him arriving in my neighbourhood and being scorned for enthusiastically introducing himself to strangers. Henry tried to explain. ‘We don’t talk to neighbours.

The new year challenge was to compose a thank-you letter for a particularly unenjoyable Christmas visit to relatives that manages to be diplomatic but deters them from ever inviting you again. This one obviously struck a chord. You produced a catalogue of seasonal torture that had me squirming in my judging throne: uncomfortable blow-up beds; minimal central heating; lecherous uncles; interminable Trivial Pursuit sessions; 2,000-piece jigsaws (‘all week spent on that dried-up riverbed from central Africa’ — Jeremy Carlisle); unpalatable vegan food; home-made celery, nettle and parsnip (mulled!) wine. And so it went on. There was nice work all round, but high fives in particular to William Casement, J.C.H.

From Nicky Haslam Q. Being considered something of a guru on the subject of things common, can you advise me how to finesse the host or hostess who asks, challengingly, ‘I suppose you think my twinkling decorations/strings of cards/mulled wine/sushi/antler headband/children are terribly common?’ A wan smile won’t suffice. A. Say, ‘Yes I do. You’re so clever to be in the vanguard. Common is the new chic.’ This is an extract from the Christmas issue of The Spectator. Subscribe here.

Ever since my teens I’ve hated Christmas, but last year something happened which made me change my mind. On 20th December, my teenage son was struck down by bacterial meningitis. No rash, no stiff neck. He’d been off school the day before but we all thought it was just a nasty cold. By the evening he seemed to be on the mend. He wolfed down a huge supper and sat up on the sofa, watching TV, tormenting his little sister. In the small hours he started throwing up. He became incoherent, then unresponsive. By the time the ambulance arrived he was like a statue. By the morning he was in intensive care, unconscious, wired up to all sorts of weird machines. Mercifully, he came round, quite suddenly, 24 hours later. I was by his bedside. I’d been awake for three days.

Are we really, as David Cameron claimed in his Christmas message, a country shaped by 'Christian values'? Yesterday’s Evening Standard poll – which found that shopping is three times more integral to Britons’ Christmas than going to church – makes you wonder what the phrase even means. It doesn’t just mean do-goodery, though that is important. About 10 million Britons get help from a church-based group every year. If you see a queue of homeless people in a town centre at about 6 o’clock in the evening, you can bet there are a bunch of God-botherers handing out sandwiches at the other end of it.

I was in Toys R Us in Brent Cross the other day with my kids, pondering the true miracle of Christmas -- that thanks to capitalism, global poverty has halved in just a generation, and we are now able to feed, clothe and shelter record numbers of people -- and buy them lots of presents. [datawrapper chart="http://static.spectator.co.uk/7PcxR/index.html"] My two-year-old was screaming because he wanted some toy cars, just a handful of fun things among an awesome display of toys that are far better, and cheaper, than they were when I was a child -- and available to more people, not just in Britain but across the world.

For the Spectator’s Christmas survey, we asked for some favourite seasonal rituals – and what to avoid at Christmas. Tim Rice ‘Once In Royal David’s City’ (all six verses, please) is the thing I love most. For a successful Christmas, avoid prosecco and prawns. Prosecco is not my favourite taste and prawns can play havoc with your stomach. Jilly Cooper My husband Leo and I used to dream up our own Christmas cards, and I still do. One year we had three black labradors in turbans in the middle of the desert. The caption was: ‘There came three wise dogs from the East, bearing bones, and being wise they ate them.

I thought you might enjoy a little parable for Christmas, so here goes… The boardroom clock said twelve minutes to one. A waft of gravy in the air indicated that Christmas lunch awaited in an adjacent room. One agenda item to go: Colin the company secretary made a throat-cutting gesture to Kevin from health and safety, who had exceeded his allotted time for a presentation on disposal of toxic waste from Indonesian supplier factories. Coming after Maureen the HR director’s Powerpoint on ‘issues around diversity’, this had entirely lost the attention of the board, most of whom, Colin observed, were fiddling with their phones under the table. Except for the chairman, George, and the chief executive — a Dutchman whose name no one could pronounce.

For the Spectator's Christmas survey, we asked for some favourite seasonal rituals - and what to avoid at Christmas. Dan Snow My favourite thing is being allowed to ignore my phone and email for days on end, re-engaging with that vaguely remembered place, the now. However, avoid overindulgence the night before Christmas. The kids will wake up on the happy morn earlier than seems possible. Even by their own nocturnal standards.   Alain de Botton My favourite ritual is reminding everyone involved that we will, of course, be having a sad and tense Christmas; there will be arguments, frustration, bitterness and barely suppressed longings to be elsewhere with other (better, more interesting) people.