CHRISTMAS CHEER
I must admit I’m a fan of Christmas. I love it. The carols, the Christmas pop songs when you’re out doing your shopping. They remind me of a job I had one year, working in Woolworths, in charge of decorations. I even like Chris Rea’s ‘Driving Home’ for Christmas. I’m not averse to listening to that one in July. But that’s mainly because I’ve only got four albums on my phone: Christmas pop songs, that free one U2 sent out and I didn’t know how to get rid of, Plan B’s The Defamation of Strickland Banks and Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits. I must have listened to the Plan B album about 500 times, the same with Neil Diamond. Whenever I’m travelling, I have them on. But I’ve never listened to that U2 album. Does anyone know how to get rid of it?
My big problem with Christmas is presents, in that I don’t like getting them. I find it a bit stressful, especially when someone gets me something extravagant. My kids get me personalised cards from Moonpig, which I will treasure for the rest of my life, because they put some effort into designing them. And I once got a coffee cup, which doesn’t sound like much, but that’s been in my car ever since. That said, if the kids ever become minted, they can buy me whatever they want.
I enjoy giving presents and seeing the happiness on people’s faces. Not that there’s always joy on people’s faces, because I’m not a great buyer. I’m a panicker, I usually leave it to the last minute and hope I’ve pulled it out of the bag. But if someone doesn’t like something I’ve bought them, it doesn’t bother me. I keep the receipts, because it irritates me when people keep things they don’t really want. I can see it on their faces, that pretend smile that’s almost a grimace. And I’ll think, ‘I’m a big boy, you can tell me you don’t like it and we’ll go and get something else instead.’ It’s not like Santa’s elves spent months knocking it up in their workshop, it was probably made in China by underpaid factory workers.
Give my wife her due, she gets me good things. Like my mum and dad when I was a kid, they never, ever got it wrong. Not once. I’d come downstairs, walk in the back room and all the presents would be in there. Everyone would open them in front of each other and there would always be a big one for me and my brother. One year, my dad had been on strike for months but they somehow managed to get us an Amiga computer. I have no idea how they did it, although I do remember them eating a lot of egg and chips. Looking back, they must have gone without so much stuff themselves to be able to afford it.
Buying for women at Christmas is an absolute minefield, for the simple reason that women aren’t men. How am I meant to know what a woman wants to wear? Lingerie is the biggest killer. Are you meant to buy what you want or what you think she’d like? I’ll walk in the shop with the best intentions, get flustered and end up buying a pair of massive knickers, like Hattie Jacques wore in the Carry On films. I mean, how are you supposed to explain what your wife might want to the shop assistant? Or what shape her body is and how big certain things are? That’s not something I really want to be discussing with a stranger in the middle of a shop. That’s where the internet comes in handy. Or the Littlewoods catalogue. Saves on those awkward conversations.
If it’s a particularly persistent shop assistant and you’re shopping for lingerie, walking out is not easy. You can’t exactly pretend you thought it was the electronics department: ‘Where are your electric toothbrushes? This is the lingerie department, you say? Sorry, madam, I didn’t realise. I thought they might be over there, by the girdles . . . ’
Kids won’t believe you when you tell them, but there was a time, not so long ago, when the lingerie sections of clothing catalogues were an entry point for teenage boys, where they first laid eyes on semi-naked women. In the internet age, the entry point doesn’t even bear thinking about. Let’s just say it isn’t a woman wearing a pair of sensible knickers in the Little-woods catalogue, standing coyly with her back to the camera. You might say kids today are spoiled, in a very real sense. No wonder they never leave their bedrooms:
‘I’m still playing Fortnite! Be down in a minute.’
‘Yes, of course you are . . . ’
Who are they trying to kid?
As I’ve already said, I get nervous shopping for myself. If a shop assistant collars me as soon as I walk through the door, I immediately zone out and turn on my heels. I feel like I’m being watched, as if I’m in some Hitchcock psychological thriller. I’ll convince myself that every time I pick an item of clothing up, they’re hovering over my shoulder and mumbling, ‘That’s never going to fit him, the fat bastard. Who the hell does he think he is?’ And if I do take a pile of clothes into the fitting room, I’ll have to buy at least one item, otherwise the shop assistants will think I’m too fat to get into anything. I’ll be standing there staring at one of those ludicrously bright mirrors they have in fitting rooms, wearing a pair of jeans that are two sizes too small for me, thinking, ‘The brightest mirror does not lie. These jeans do not fit. But I will slim into them.’ Two days later, I’ll ask my missus to take them back.
Posh shops are the worst, a whole different level of stiff. When I used to take the kids with me when they were younger to posh shops, the assistants would be so stiff and watch us like hawks. You could tell they were on edge, getting ready to press the alarm under the desk and summon security. The northern accent didn’t help. I’d feel like Fagin and his little gang of pick-pockets, let loose up the West End. If a posh shop assistant gave us a smile and left us to it, I’d repay them by ordering the kids to behave themselves. Otherwise, I’d whisper to them, ‘Kids, consider this shop a playground, where anything goes.’ With that, they’d start grabbing expensive sunglasses and trying them on, spraying each other with aftershave and perfume. And I’d watch the shop assistants getting flustered and think, ‘No sympathy. Play the snobbery game with us and you will lose.’
Shop assistants in America are the busiest bastards. As soon as you set foot into a shop, they’re all over you like flies on shit. If you can’t find you what you came in for, they’ll start suggesting alternatives: ‘What about this? Or what about this? This would look great on you.’ I’ll be thinking, ‘Erm, no, why would I take advice on what to wear from a complete stranger from America?’ It used to really get on my nerves, until I learned that the reason American shop assistants are so busy isn’t because they’re just naturally lovely people, it’s because they’re all on commission. If too many people walk out of their shop without buying anything, they don’t make much money.
Being a cricketer, I’ve been having random Christmases since my teenage years. I’ve experienced Christmases all over the world, from Australia to Pakistan to South Africa. I hated most of those Christmases, they were shocking. Yes, I got to party with my teammates, but only some of my teammates were actually mates. Some of them I didn’t really like. And who wants to spend Christmas sitting around a table with random blokes and their families?
Nowadays, going out for dinner on Christmas Eve is a family tradition, while I prefer to spend Christmas Day at home. We all open our presents in the morning and the rest of the day is for eating. Apart from one year, when my missus went rogue and insisted the kids open some presents in the morning and some in the afternoon. I couldn’t be doing with that. It doused the drama. Opening Christmas presents is all about the kids turning into animals for 15 minutes and leaving the entire room filled with wrapping paper and boxes so that it looks like a rubbish tip. Opening presents at different times of the day must be a southern thing, and I don’t like it one bit.
After opening our presents, my mum and dad enter the fray. And then I do the meat: cook the turkey upside down, like Delia or Jamie or someone or other does it, and let all the juices flow into the breast. Keep spooning the fat all over it, before turning it over for the last half an hour. Remove the foil and hopefully you’ve nailed it. If you have nailed it, everyone will talk about it for the rest of the day, as if you’re some kind of cookery genius who’s performed some dark magic. Which is daft, because it’s not like there’s any magic to it. I’m not a turkey whisperer, I just put it in the oven and cook it upside down. And if you haven’t nailed it, everyone will talk as if you’ve nailed it anyway. Those are some basic turkey rules.
But I have got it wrong, I must admit. I’ve underdone the turkey, in which case it ended up in a frying pan, and I’ve overdone the turkey, in which case there was nothing I could do to salvage the situation. I don’t know a great deal about cookery, but I do know that you can’t uncook a turkey.
Because I’m a fan of the Queen, we always sit round and watch her Christmas Message. I’ve got a lot of respect for her, but it’s also a nostalgia thing. When I was a kid, my nan and grandpa would come round on Christmas Day and make sure we had it on the telly. My nan loved the Queen, even used to write letters to her. And she always got a reply. She’d write about her grandkids: ‘Our Andrew’s started playing for Lancashire and our Christopher’s playing cricket as well.’ Some of the letters she got back from the Queen were lovely. She also used to write to prime ministers. I remember her getting a reply from John Major, wishing me well in my career as a cricketer, because he’s a massive cricket fan. A couple of years ago, I sat next to him at the Oval.
After the Queen’s finished her message, I sit back and eat my own bodyweight in chocolate. I’m not into a lot of traditional Christmas foods, like Christmas pudding. I’d love to know the ratio of Christmas puddings sold to Christmas puddings eaten every year, it must be something like 100 to 1. I’m not a raisin or sultana man. I like the taste of them but the texture frightens me. And they’re basically shrivelled, wizened, ill grapes. I can’t get my head around that. You wouldn’t eat anything else that was on its last legs. One time, my missus wanted to get me out of bed and threw a box of raisins at me. I played it cool, but it got to me, it really did. Raisins are like snakes to me. Even when my auntie Joan used to serve me up a buttered hot cross bun, I’d pick out the raisins and put them in my pockets. I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
I have an aversion to mince pies for much the same reason. Who likes mince pies anyway? Anyone under 40? Not a chance would I eat one of those. The same with nuts. I like a pistachio but I can’t be arsed taking them out of their shells. And I don’t live in a Dickens novel, where a bowl of nuts was the stuff of a madman’s dreams. I love a bowl of custard – I’ll even eat it cold – but without the mince pie. But the idea of trifle fills me with dread. Trifle is the devil’s work. Jelly, fruit, sponge, custard and sherry all mixed together? Whoever invented it must have been on acid. The sherry means I’m not allowed to eat it anyway. I can imagine being interviewed in a few years’ time and the journalist saying, ‘What got you back on the booze?’ and me replying, ‘My mum’s trifle.’
My Christmas dessert of choice is a big slice of Victoria sponge. Not very Christmassy, you might think, but once you’ve got your cracker hat on, everything’s Christmassy. That’s the only thing about Christmas, there’s a lot of feigned happiness. You’ll pull a cracker, stick the hat on, show everyone the pair of nail clippers that’s fallen out and everyone will act as if it’s the best thing that’s ever happened. And if a set of clockwork false teeth that can chatter and walk around the table falls out, it’s as if Jesus has appeared.
The sizing for cracker hats is all over the place. Marks and Spencer need to hire a good milliner. One person’s cracker hat will be sat on the top of their head at a jaunty angle, another person’s will have slipped down their forehead so that it’s covering their eyes, someone else’s will be round their neck. I’ll look around the table and think, ‘What is happening here? Grandpa’s 92 and he’s got a cracker hat on. Have some dignity, man.’ Meanwhile, he’s telling me the turkey’s nice and moist when he can barely chew it. Instead, he’s letting it dissolve on his tongue, like a cough lozenge. Personally, I don’t like wearing a cracker hat. I feel like standing up, slamming my hands on the table and screaming, ‘I am not a paper king!’ It’s not even proper paper. It’s old-school toilet paper. But I always bow to Christmas peer pressure. You just look like an old misery guts if you’re not wearing one. And no one likes to be an old misery guts on Christmas Day – the family Scrooge – even if you are one.
When it comes to Christmas chocolates, I’m a Heroes rather than a Celebrations man. As far as I’m concerned, Cadbury win that one hands down. That said, each pick and mix has its pros and cons. I am a rare breed in that I love a miniature Bounty. In most houses, the Celebrations box is swimming with Bounties as Christmas Day draws to a close, but not in our house. I think it’s because I like to suck my chocolate. That’s why I’m a big fan of Yorkies, it’s like sucking on miniature breeze blocks. But you pop a piece of Cadbury Caramel into your mouth and it’s gone in seconds, and no one wants that.
Someone told me once that they play a Christmas Day game which involves Heroes versus Celebrations, in a Ryder Cup format. Heroes were the European team, Celebrations the US team, you’d have a blind draw and everyone would have to vote on the winner of each match. It was surprisingly tactical. Do Celebrations frontload their team with the big guns, like Mars and Snickers? Or do they chuck Bounty and Milky Way up front, as sacrificial lambs, having anticipated that Heroes would be leading out with Dairy Milk and Caramel, both titans of the chocolate world? Personally, I prefer charades. And I’m not sure it works, because everyone knows that Dairy Milk is king.
Once dinner is out of the way and the cracker hat has been shed and scraped into the bin with the leftover turkey, we’ll all crash out and watch a Christmas film. And when it comes to family Christmas films, you can’t beat Elf with Will Ferrell. And then I fall asleep. Actually, I’m usually asleep after about half an hour. And that’s pretty much that for another year. I’ve never been a big fan of Boxing Day. When I was still on the booze, I’d wake up with a terrible hangover, because I’d been drinking since breakfast on Christmas Day, and still feeling stuffed. And then I’d have to run through a brick wall again. There’d be half a turkey that needed finishing, all the food that no one wanted to eat on Christmas Day and two crates of lager. I associate Boxing Day with groaning. People sprawled all over the house groaning. It’s not the best day , but now I enjoy it as we go to my mums.
Of course, after Boxing Day is even worse. That awful void of pointlessness. The lost zone. No one knows what the date is, everyone keeps asking what day of the week it is. Mind you, the 27th was always a big day when we were kids, because it was my auntie’s birthday and she’d have another party. But when she died, we lost the 27th as well. That just became another part of the lost zone. But we did gain the 28th recently, because that’s when our last baby was born. Thinking about it, I might have another one and time it so that its arrival fills another gap between Boxing Day and new year. Just so we’ve got something to do. Rather than eating turkey and miniature Bounties.
As for New Year’s Eve, it’s the worst night of the year. By a country mile. You go out and wait for something great to happen that never happens. Even when I drank it was terrible. I don’t need to be counting down to midnight, holding strangers’ hands and dancing all over the place like an idiot. And when it got to midnight, nothing actually changed. It was just another day. It was all so forced, and there are few things worse in life than forced fun.
The only time it was half-decent was when I was a kid, when my auntie Pauline would have a party for all the family and I’d get to see my cousins. But as soon as that stopped, New Year’s Eve turned to shit. Now, me and the missus never know what to do – because everyone thinks they have to do something – and end up doing nothing. And then you wake up the following morning and it’s January. And as if January isn’t bleak enough, some bright spark decided to make dry January a thing, although every month is dry for me. Why would anyone want to stop drinking in January? Surely it would be a better idea to say, ‘What can we do to make January more fun?’ Fun January. That makes a lot more sense to me.