Holidays here and there

Random reflections on Christmas 2022 in London and my part of the US

‘I thought about sending these chocolate coins to them as Hanukah gelt but decided they probably had enough chocolate’ were my words leading to the lady in front of me at Fortnum & Mason turning around. She wistfully said ‘Wow. This probably the only time I will hear anyone mention Hanukah this year’. Her distinctly American accent sounded so sad. I wished her a Happy Hanukkah which she eagerly returned. By that point we had crested the crushing line to reach the tills so we parted ways. Her wistfulness stuck with me overnight.

Regent Street in December is still ablaze with many little white lights which I remember from my graduate school days; I don’t recall whether they shaped angels back then as we see this year. I read many Christmas appeals for charity, particularly poignant at a time of nursing, bus, and other industrial workers’ actions, in the newspapers, on billboards, and in shop windows. I definitely read snippets in the papers daily about how people can hold their heating costs down in the face of the raging inflation. (Indications are that US inflation is coming down but 7.1% is still considerably higher than in 2021). Stores are decked out to sell anything and everything to make the Christmas Day so memorable for all. The commercialization of the holiday is a noteworthy trend indeed and sounds like the US and U.K. are completely in sync. I see many more large parties than I remember for Christmas but I suspect that is the post-COVID desire for human contact as catching up as much as anything else—and I applaud that!

I don’t see tremendous differences between how we celebrate the holidays versus our British cousins but a few do exist. I have seen no indication of restaurants preparing to serve Christmas dinners, none. As a matter of fact, the Army Navy Club, the RAG, on St. James’s Square is preparing to shut down entirely the middle of next week for several days so staff can spend time with their families. Friends in Britain patiently explained to me in the 1970# that they view Christmas as an absolute holiday for being home, as we view Thanksgiving in the United States (I did not have the heart to tell them I have never found Thanksgiving compelling as I did not grow up in the United States but I did know what they thought). Back across the pond, we tend to hear about establishments paying double or even triple wages to lure employees in for things like serving a meal, working a nursing shift, or some other service we continue offering on Christmas Day. That simply does not happen here as Britain fully embraces the celebration of Christmas much as the Chinese shut down their society for the lunar holidays of spring. Britain also has an additional day to enjoy as Boxing Day, the 26th, commemorates a time when the working classes got a whiff of enjoyment from their employers providing food in boxes for the day following Christmas.

I still hear the Christmas choirs along the streets indicating a more traditional community involvement. A band in Windsor at the train station Sunday morning became an eight part harmony of carollers two hours later, neither entirely made of professionals but obviously seeking to spread genuine cheer we rarely hear at home these days. At the same time, I have heard not a single Salvation a army bell ringer anywhere in our days here.

The greatest distinction is the stress on the Christian aspect of the season with, as noted above, no nods to ecumenicalism, much less a mention of Kwanzaa which is now a ubiquitous celebration in urban areas of the United States. I find this most interesting for two reasons. First, week before last I read a story about Britain having a population with fewer than 50% identifying themselves as Christian in Wales and England (‘Is religion dying in England and Wales’, 1 December 2022, retrieved at https://birmingham.ac.uk/news/2022/is-religion-dying-in-england-and-wales? ). Additionally, King Charles announced only yesterday he intends to include all religions in his coronation in May 2023, quite a stunning position for someone whose formal role includes defender of the state religion of the Church of England (Victoria Ward, ‘King Charles to recognize all faiths at coronation’, Daily Telegraph! 12 December 2022, https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi4_tyK9_b7AhUTQkEAHY6xAM4QvOMEKAB6BAgcEAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.telegraph.co.uk%2Froyal-family%2F2022%2F12%2F12%2Fking-charles-recognise-faiths-coronation%2F&usg=AOvVaw1l3maq316gXH8qgorp1hOH) Christmas is Christ’s birth by all indications, a far cry from the varied seasonal greetings and joys in the United States.

Rare whining about Britain becoming ‘woke’ has appeared in The Daily Telegraph this morning, but no one seems nearly as aggressively upset as true in the United States. While Britons seem to debate everything else, but not this point.

I cannot imagine the United States ever returning to celebrating, purchasing, partying, and enjoying solely a Christian holiday, regardless of what some might profess to desire. We are a place for winter seasons of celebration. I could be wrong. But, that is one of the differences I note between us and our British cousins as we near the end of the season. Relatively small differences really.

One thing I did see this afternoon, however, that stopped me dead in my tracks was yesterday’s snow on the palm tree. Who says palm trees only exist in Penzance or the southwest as I learned many decades ago? The evidence is in hand. Goodness!FIN