Christmas comes but once a year, yet in our family, it used to happen twice. As the shops once again anticipate the 2025 festivities by at least two months, I’m reminded of how difficult it was years ago trying to be full of good cheer on a damp weekend in early November when no-one else was in the Jingle Bells mood.
We’re talking late last century, in a forgotten time when it wasn’t easy to find Christmas stuff on sale before the dawning of December. If you wanted sparkly tinsel, or a battery-operated rotating Santa Claus on a plastic plinth singing Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or seasonal wrapping paper, you were out of luck unless there were some leftovers from the previous year.
This attempted double Christmas had nothing to do with me. It was the legacy of living with another person whose mother, back in the UK, had funny ideas about tradition. The logic seemed to be that Christmas time is much too busy for families to get together, so we’d better meet up beforehand, leaving Christmas day free for….not having visitors.
So we’d cross the Channel in early November, with little sign of any yuletide atmosphere anywhere and join a few family friends pulling crackers saved from the real Christmas the previous year and drinking seasonal alcohol and sitting around without even the Queen’s (now King’s) traditional Christmas message on the telly to fall asleep in front of.
These days, early November has been made a bit more credible as a possible launchpad for holiday cheer simply because shops everywhere set the pace with Santa-themed window dressings, even if they don’t normally sell Christmassy things.
Already, as this edition of this magazine is published (mid-November), the shops here are going for it big time, encouraged of course by the fact that Belgians get ahead of the game by hailing the arrival of Saint Nicholas on December 6 – a tradition which prompts some parents to shower their kids with treats and pre-Christmas presents, while others (certainly the Brits) try to hold off until the 25th.
Santa imposter
A long time ago, I was asked to play Father Christmas at a house party in Brussels full of small kids (the real Father Christmas being busy elsewhere, of course).
It wasn’t an expat occasion, but a mix of nationalities and my function, of course, was to hand out small presents to children who had been good throughout the year. I assumed that, for the purposes of the season joy and good cheer, it meant all of them.
General view from the big wheels at 'winter wonders' (Plaisirs dhiver - Winterpret) Christmas market, in Brussels city centre, Tuesday 20 December 2016. Credit: Belga
But before I made my grand entrance, many of the parents handed me typewritten notes in French, detailing the failings of their offspring, which I quickly realised I was supposed to relay to the kids by jolly old Santa to remind them to improve their behaviour in future in return for getting a gift.
I’ve still got some of the notes in which the adults told tales to Father Christmas about tantrums at bedtime, not doing well enough in school or similar run-of-the-mill misdemeanours common to everyone. Some were mildly threatening about the prospects of getting gifts at all unless they vowed to improve their behaviour.
I realised I was supposed to read all this stuff out, but in the noisy party atmosphere, most of the parents couldn’t hear what I was saying to their offspring through my long white beard.
So I muttered positive messages and patted them on the head, coupled with a few shouts of “Ho ho ho!” I really couldn’t bring myself to ruin the jolly reputation of the bloke in red by giving these kids a verbal slap on the wrist.
Scene from Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton
But back to my double Christmas dilemma, triggered by in-laws in the UK who insisted on staging the whole festive thing in November to avoid peak seasonal chaos.
It never really worked in the same way that taking a summer vacation in Blankenberge in early March to avoid overcrowding on the beach never works.
I’m not saying that the traditional option is stress-free, but it’s in our DNA to fret about presents and how much to spend without looking miserly or too extravagant – and to share the burden with everyone else doing exactly the same at the same time.
Christmas countdown
Whatever we say that we wouldn’t want it any other way – and the fact that shopkeepers constantly bring forward the unofficial launch date by cunningly changing their window designs earlier and earlier in the year – it only increases the panic about what to buy for family and friends this year.
The pressure just grows and grows as you try to come up with something original. Increasingly, as December 25th gets closer, you recognise the knowing grins and grimaces from fellow frantic Xmas shoppers, who exchange throwaway lines such as “soon be over” and “can it really be twelve months since last time?” as they struggle with things they hope the recipients will like – or at least pretend to.
Brussels' Grand Place at Christmas
In other words, there’s a sense of enforced communion, the Dunkirk spirit, we’re all in this together, working hard at spending money because it’s worth it just to see the looks on the kids’ faces and so on.
And it doesn’t always stop when the kids have flown the coop. I could name a few former excitable children now in mid-life who still insist on reverting to tradition at this time of year, including leaving a seasonal snack and a small glass of some liqueur either by the fireplace or in the kitchen.
And woe betide the parent, however elderly now, who doesn’t get up early enough to remove the snack – leaving behind some crumbs on the plate, of course - and emptying the glass before the “kids” get up.
And then, there’s the tradition (in the UK, at least) of Christmas stockings hanging on bedposts on Christmas Eve, packed full of little and large trinkets and treats as a prelude to proper presents the next day. The whole crazy stocking thing is almost completely unheard of here – although there’s a similar thing involving leaving a shoe out on December 6, to be mysteriously filled with little gifts.
Anyway, I’d better get on with planning Christmas. At the time of writing, it’s late October, and by the time you are reading this it will be the second half of November, and before you know it, December 25 will have arrived – and then it will be all over for another year.
Wrapped up
The other day in mid-October, as part of intense research for this article, I went shopping in Brussels to buy Christmas wrapping paper. The aim was to establish just how early the commercial Christmas rush begins these days.
I was disappointed by the absence of seasonal excitement and the lack of rush. There was no seasonal music wafting from speakers in coffee shops, no-one grilling chestnuts on an open fire at a street corner, and not much sign of Christmas wrapping paper either.
I found some pretty wrapping paper in a sweet shop, but it had no reference to Christmas on it. As the shopkeeper pointed out, most Christmas paper doesn’t actually mention Christmas on it. He grinned and said the French equivalent of “Getting ready a bit early, aren’t we?”
I feared I was exaggerating the extent to which Christmas is being marketed earlier and earlier in the year, until a few days later, still in October, I noticed a dramatic change in some shop windows, including a massive display of elaborate Advent calendars in a perfume shop. And that was when I got the first sense of the commercial hustle and bustle essence of Christmas arriving once more.
It’s not here yet but it’s coming fast, so I feel confident enough now to wish you all a very merry, panic-free Christmas – assuming, of course, you’re reading this magazine before December 25.
