Christmas

Soothe your post-Christmas dinner indigestion with these readers' charms, dug out from the spell-book that is the 24th December 1954 edition. The usual prize of £5 was offered for a charm against the pains of indigestion after Christmas dinner, in not more than eight lines of English verse: the charm to be pronounced while taking the prescribed dose of bismuth, bicarb., or other normal remedy. Nearly ninety competitors were prepared to reinforce their doses of magnesia, bismuth, bicarb. and alka-seltzer with a rhyming charm; but, although among the big and little guns there were (as Sir John Squire said in a Masefield parody) `some interesting ones,' I was rather disappointed not to come across a really charming charm.

Every Christmas, The Spectator runs a short story but for the first time this year we're having it read — and by the author. We're delighted that Susan Hill, whose many books include The Woman In Black and The Mist in the Mirror, has agreed to read her new story, The Boy on the Hillside, which we are releasing as a special podcast. If you can wire up your computer or telephone to the sofa, it's the perfect way to spend some time on Christmas Eve.

In this festive Low Life column from the 19 December 1981 edition of The Spectator, Jeffrey Bernard talks us through some Christmases past. I've tried ignoring Christmas but the bastard won't go away. It's never been a good time of year for me what with being ignored by Father Christmas — yes, I'm going to have a right old moan today — and three years ago being left completely alone in a freezing cottage. Season of goodwill? You must be joking. But at least I've had an office party this year in Kentish Town. Last night I poured a vodka into my electric typewriter and it nearly blew up. There aren't any decorations here and in this day and age I reckon a man could get kicked in the balls if he was found loafing under the mistletoe.

Does Christmas have to start with a payday loan? No, according to the Church of England. The Church has unveiled its annual advertising campaign this morning, posing this very question to the residents of Manchester. As usual, the CofE is worried Britons are becoming ignorant about the origins of Christmas. As one of the adverts (pictured above) from Christmas starts with Christ shows, the aim is to remind Britain of the religious nature of the festive season as well as urging people not to go into debt to finance Christmas. But are the payday loan companies the only companies the Church should be worried about? In a recent Barometer column, we compared the cost of borrowing of £200 from Wonga to the high street banks.

When I first suggested to my closest male friends that we have a boys’ Christmas lunch, it didn’t occur to me that this would turn into an annual institution. We saw each other three nights a week as it was, so this was just another excuse to go out and get drunk. But a one-off became a habit, a habit became a ritual, and that ritual now enjoys the same status as all the other little ceremonies that make up Christmas. Today, I would no more think of missing that lunch than I would of resigning from my job as ‘paper elf’ — the person whose job it is to pick up all the discarded wrapping paper on 25 December. The reason it’s become so imbued with meaning is that it’s now the only time I see these friends.

Despite 'the age of austerity', Britain still has a debt problem. That’s the conclusion of a new report from the Centre for Social Justice. It suggests that personal debt in the UK has reached a record high of £1.4 trillion, or 90 per cent of the UK's economic output last year. That’s not happened overnight; but the debt level has increased steadily over the last decade: Breaking this down, the CSJ says that the average household debt is now £54,000 (nearly double what it was a decade ago). Thanks to the increase in borrowing, 5,000 people were made homeless last year due to mortgage and rent arrears.

'For millions of families', the Telegraph reports today, poinsettia 'is as much a festive favourite as turkey and Christmas trees'. Which is odd given that they're tropical plants which like to be grown at a balmy 20 degrees. But we can expect fewer of them this year because the UK energy crisis means energy bills are up by almost a third for some growers this year. The plants aren't worth heating. We could see a million fewer of them grown here this Christmas than five years ago, so suppliers are having to bring in lower-quality stock from the continent to meet demand. Will Ed Miliband pledge a price freeze on poinsettias? And show that socialism can save Christmas? Stranger things have happened.