Christmas

In the past year, the Guardian has declared tea-drinkers to possess ‘the worst possible English trait, up there with colonialism‘, HP sauce as the condiment of the establishment, street parties to be ‘a front for a middle-class nationalism that celebrates austerity’, and sunday roasts to ‘evoke received memories of oppression and an enslaved work force’. So, perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the publication isn’t big on Christmas either. As the nation prepares to drink and eat its body weight in mulled wine, roast turkey and mince pies, over at the Grauniad hacks are adopting a Scrooge-esque tone with regards to yuletide. George Monbiot — a columnist for the paper — has

Time moves on so quickly and now here we are again – it’s the month when many people are focused on their Christmas shopping. So what better time for shoppers to brush up on their rights, be wary of scammers and consider the best credit card deals to make their cash go a little further. Know your rights on returns There may have been some impulse buys on Black Friday – and anyone can change their mind. So it’s good to know that shoppers will have around 30 days to return an item for a refund or store credit. It’s important to check the returns policy of the store at the point of

Here we go again, my 40th Christmas column in a row, and it seems only two weeks ago that I filed the last one. This is a very happy time of year — parties galore, lots of love for our fellow man and happiness all around. Mind you, there is an old calypso that says: ‘If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife…’. I’m not so sure about that; in my book, the prettier the woman the happier it makes me, but I could be wrong. My instinct tells me that a pretty woman keeps a man on his

In another world, I would sit down at the beginning of December with a notepad and pen and make a really organised Christmas shopping list. What I actually do is commence the proceedings by searching every drawer in the house for forgotten gift vouchers. I usually start with the children’s rooms. My son and daughter, despite being brought up to count every penny, hardly ever use these things. My daughter’s school probably thinks it is setting her off on a lifetime of worthy pursuits with a £5 voucher for WH Smith awarded for good work over the year. She, however, shoves the thing in with her socks and promptly forgets

Cyber Monday. It’s an odd phrase, more likely to conjure apocalyptic visions of a Terminator-style machine invasion than a frenzied day of online shopping. Like Black Friday, Cyber Monday is relatively new to these shores. In just a few short years, it’s become part of the year’s busiest spending weekend, with both days book-ending a four-day shopping spree. This year it looks like Cyber Monday will overtake Black Friday in terms of sales as people shift towards online spending. Experts predict that UK shoppers will increase spending by a fifth to £1.9 billion today. Amid all this hype, however, is the very real prospect that falling for retailers’ hyperbole surrounding the

The first Sunday of Advent is 27 November this year. For those of us who prefer Advent services to Christmas ones, the earlier the better, frankly. I relish the frisson of gloom, foreboding and fear of judgment you get at Advent, alongside the hope. ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ is all very well, but it’s the minor chord at the end of ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ that I crave. So do thousands of others, it seems. The Advent service at Salisbury Cathedral, for example, is so oversubscribed these days that it’s repeated on three consecutive evenings, starting on the Friday before Advent Sunday. So, tears barely dry from the

Forget killer clowns. Halloween was once a very different affair from the Americanised gorefest it is now. In its-original Irish form, as when I was growing up, it was an opportunity for children to dress up in their parents’ clothes, wear a mask and a hat and go begging from door to door for nuts, apples or money for bobbing — viz, sticking your head in a basin of water to dive after coins and apples. There was barmbrack — a sort of yeasted fruitbread you ate on the night — which contained a ring to predict who would be the next to marry (that dates it) and, in old-fashioned

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

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