When the festive cheer is not so near

Are you all set for the Christmas? There are just two sleeps left. Two sleeps and it will all be over, writes Michael Clifford.

Monday will dawn with a sense of magic for little people across the land. For big people it means the prospect of getting bigger by eating and drinking the heart out of the day.

And then, in the aftermath, the perennial question will be passed around. “How did you get on over the Christmas?” It’s as if the day is a test of sorts, to be welcomed, enjoyed, but most importantly, survived. The day will have been deemed a success of everybody gets through it fully intact and looking forward to another 364 sleeps.

Even for this Grinch there is no denying the warm, fuzzy feeling in the December air. Everywhere you look there are lights, blinking and flashing against the night to see us through darkest weeks of the year. For most people, it’s all good, positive stuff.

It’s definitely a time for drink. From early this month, mountainous slabs of beer have been encroaching into supermarket aisles. On shelves where once there were tins of tomatoes on offer, now there is only the finest Pinot Grigot at half price. Gone is the prospect of a special offer of sugar-free granola because that space is required to flog whiskey and rum.

Everybody is loading up with booze. It’s a long haul from here to New Year’s Eve. And in the middle of it all, the day itself trembles as the pubs are all shut. Who knows what could happen when the pubs close for 24 hours? Maybe a meteorite might strike. Better to stock up and be safe because it will be too late to be sorry.

So it goes for most folk at Christmas, enjoying warm, harmless relief from the rest of the year. For some though it’s more struggle than celebration.

It’s no time for the lonely. Putting on a smile can be hard work at this time of year. For the lonely in a crowd there is pressure to get with the programme. Pretend to smile and the whole room smiles with you.

For others there is a lonely pull of Christmases past. A loved one is no longer around. The good cheer is difficult to negotiate for anybody who has been bereaved during the year.

The thought of how Christmases past were so much better will also occupy those whose dreams have run into the sand. The world at the moment doesn’t lend itself to spontaneous jollity.

Luckily the endless jangle of shiny happy Christmas songs are punctuated now and then with a tune that does spare a thought for those on the outside.

The lost and lonely are centre stage in ‘Fairytale of New York’, with the song’s main protagonist facing into a night in the ‘drunk tank’ while his partner is most likely at the bottle herself as Christmas dawns on the boulevard of broken dreams.

“I coulda been someone, and so could anyone, you took my dreams from me, when I first found you.”

Another depiction of a desperate strain of seasonal loneliness can be heard in Tom Waits’s song, the perfectly titled, ‘Christmas Card From A Hooker in Minneapolis’.

The ballad takes the form of a Christmas card in which the prostitute writes to an old boyfriend, Charlie, telling him how she’s happily married to a trombone-playing husband and things are really looking up.

The bad times are behind her. Then, in the last verse, she comes clean about where she is really at.

“Hey Charlie, for Christsakes, do you want to know the truth of it?

I don’t have a husband, he don’t play the trombone

And I need to borrow money to pay this lawyer

and Charlie, hey, I’ll be eligible for parole, come Valentine’s Day.”

At least the new year might bring her some good cheer down the line.

Another constituency that struggles at this time of year is those attempting to stay sober while all around them make merry.

A peek at that kind of endurance was provided in Paul Durcan’s poem, Christmas Day. It features two men, Paul and Frank, groping through the day without drink or family.

Both are mending their lives from the ravages of drink that had brought them to their current station. They are on the outside, battling against the elements shut out from the warmth within.

As Durcan writes:

“Christmas is the feast of St Loneliness, I street walk at night, Looking in the windows, Of other people’s houses, Assessing the Christmas decorations, Marking them out of ten.”

Years later Durcan revealed that the poem grew out of a Christmas he spent in the company of the late Donal McCann.

The poem also provides a refuge for the pair in wry humour.

“I am staring at the empty drinks cupboard.

Frank notices me.

‘Isn’t that a scenic spectacle, Paul?

More scenic than a full drinks cabinet.

More soul enticing’.”

In one sense Paul and Frank were lucky on the big day. At least they got to spend it in peace, keeping the worst of the demons at bay.

There will, on Monday, be some who are struggling to stay afloat in the presence of jollity, eyeing the tall glass of red wine, nose twitching at faintest waft of beer as those around fall into a trance of merriness. Spare a thought for those soldiers.

Then there are those without the most basic anchor from which to launch into the party. Christmas is no time for those with no home.

Traditionally, there is a heightened awareness of the plight of homeless people at this time of year. Genuine attempts are made to lighten the load of those outside looking in. And this year the awareness has been even greater, such is the escalating problem and the sense that more has to be done to alleviate it.

So spare a thought for all of those who are living through a season of dread rather than some light relief.

And so Merry Christmas, and if the occasion doesn’t reach that far, let it at least be happy. Keep an eye out for everybody, batten down the hatches and the new year will dawn fresh and mad for action.