DECK THE HALLS WITH BOUGHS OF HOLLY

It’s hard for us not to smile when hearing this carol. The line “most highly favoured lady” from the Basque carol “The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came” which on the lips of many choristers becomes “most highly flavoured gravy” has the same effect.  Christmas is a time of amusement, excess and fun. The pagans stuffed themselves in the hope that this would help get them through the vile chill of January. And looking at the old Brueghel paintings of typical Dutch weather one can see that need. Yet today in Amsterdam it’s 13C.

In this fast moving world, Christmas is a time for nostalgia, for remembering Christmases past. I recall three evocative smells from my own childhood Christmas: tangerines, the shiny pages of the Eagle Annual and the rich aroma of Macanudo Cigars. It was the only time of the year I recall seeing my father slightly pissed and being the comedian we never normally saw. I remember a brief sense of plenty and unlikely confections like Green Chartreuse. It was when people let their hair down and the Queen’s speech was a must-listen-to event.

As our doorbell rang today at 7am - Parcel Force with more Amazon parcels, I realised the brutal Christmas crushes in the shops were things of the past. Last week was like any other week in London thanks to e-commerce.  Meanwhile the Christmas Turkey has been getting a bad press. Johnny Ray of the Spectator described it as a” dire bird.”  Well ours is hand reared in Kent and was probably called Gwendolen. We’ll meet her in her glossy coffin - a neat box - on Wednesday. She had better not be dire.

Ours will be a family affair aged from 93 to 1 ½; it will be Christmas as it’s been for over 150 years. But what has changed, and it’s ironic in what I’ve already called this “fast moving world”, is that Christmas now lasts from December 18th to January 4th.  And we don’t really regard this as holiday so much as a time of “no one else is going to be in anyway.”

But are we this year just a little more imbued with Christmas bonhomie than in the recent past as a friend of mine tentatively suggested? I think we are. We are living in (for now) a reasonably stable country. London rocks, the Northern Powerhouse is more of a reality than ever - Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and the others are doing brilliantly. Ghastly events are happening elsewhere but for better or worse Britain has become a cosier place than I recall in the recent past.

Here’s Dickens on Christmas:

“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.”

I love that idea of Christmas as a “noble adjustment of things.” Drink deeply, eat well and laugh a lot and Happy Christmas.

FINDING THE RIGHT WORD

Our vocabulary sometimes lacks the word with right nuance. I was sent a lot of words by Peter Lederer from other languages which fill the gap. I’ve included the most poignant of these and some from other sources, the most telling from “The Meaning of Liff” written by the comic geniuses Douglas Adams and John Lloyd. It all rather reminds me of Brueghel’s Tower of Babel.

Enjoy. I think they’re “lagom”.

1. Tartle (Scots)
That panicky hesitation just before you have to introduce someone whose name you can't quite remember.

2. Mamihlapinatapai (Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego)
That special look shared between two people, when both are wishing that the other would do something that they both want, but neither want to do.

3. Backpfeifengesicht (German)
A face badly in need of a fist.

4. Pelinti (Buli, Ghana)
You bite into a piece of piping hot pizza, then open your mouth tilt your head around while making an “aaaarrrahh” noise. It means “to move hot food around in your mouth.”

5. Greng-jai (Thai)
That feeling you get when you don't want someone to do something for you because it would be a pain for them.

6. Gigil (Filipino)
The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is irresistibly cute.

7. Lagom (Swedish)
This slippery word means something like, “not too much, and not too little, but juuuuust right.”

8. Bakku-shan (Japanese)
The experience of seeing a woman who appears pretty from behind but not from the front.

9. Pana Po’o (Hawaiian)
 It means to scratch your head in order to help you remember something you’ve forgotten.

10. Cafune (Brazilian Portuguese)
The word for “tenderly running your fingers through your lover’s hair.”

11. Kaelling (Danish)
A mother who stands in a supermarket or wherever cursing at her children.

12. Boketto (Japanese)
The act of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking.

13.  Bilita Mpash (Bantu)
An amazing dream. Not just a "good" dream; the opposite of a nightmare.

14. Luftmensch (Yiddish)
Impractical dreamer with no business sense.

15. Dungeness (The Meaning of Liff)
The feeling the handles of an overloaded supermarket bag are getting longer and longer.

16. Amersham (ibid)
A sneeze that tickles but never comes

17. Nottage (Ibid)
The name for things you have a burning need for just after you’ve thrown them away.

18. Shemomedjamo (Georgian)
When your meal is just so delicious, you can’t stop eating it? This word means, “I accidentally ate the whole thing." Monty Pythonesque!

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