Stephen McGinty: I’ve had my fill of Christmas

From a winter festival to an orgy of gluttony where we eat far more than is good for us, is it any wonder that we are confused by the religious message

LAST Christmas I gave you my heart. So sings George Michael in the annual festive favourite by Wham! The exclamation mark belongs to them, not me. This is perhaps the most popular piece of punctuation among the younger generation who view it (by which I mean:‘!’ ) as a fat man does the salt cellar, both believing every missive or meal can be enlivened by a liberal dousing.

Personally, I believe that it should be locked up in the attic where its maniacal, incessant cackling can be strictly quarantined.

Yet I digress, for the reason the song comes to mind is for the simple fact that last Christmas I very nearly did give my away my heart: to gluttony.

Let me explain. There is a natural rhythm for the Christmas glutton and he or she ignores the warning signs at their peril. Last Christmas Day I feasted, as is tradition, on two large plates of goose, roast potatoes, sage and onion stuffing, honey glazed carrots, brussels sprouts with chestnuts and pancetta and lashings of cranberry sauce.

After a brief pause it was on to Christmas pudding, coated, like a culinary Mount Fuji, in a thick blanket of brandy butter cream. Then it was time for dessert. My wife Lori’s delicious red velvet cake which much prefers to be dressed in single pouring cream, as the crisp white best accentuates this study in scarlet. After two, smallish, portions, it was time for coffee and cream and the short waddle to the sofa.

As all Christmas gluttons know, the key is to be comfortably ensconced in preparation for that slightly, awkward three or four minutes during which time you focus intensely on the Dr Who Christmas special, while uttering a silent prayer that your stomach is still as commodious as the Tardis.

For the Christmas glutton these three or four minutes, in which we genuinely fear that we will actually be sick, is one of uncomfortable, guilt-ridden self disgust which must be borne with fortitude and determination. We must endure, putting faith in the restorative power of our digestive juices and confident that we can still reach the promised land of the seasonal supper table.

For, let us be candid, the only thing better than Christmas dinner is the bounteous cold buffet that arrives two hours later, when we Christmas gluttons take exactly the same items as that which previously graced our plates and press them between two pieces of bread, the plate escorted by a strong cup of tea and a side plate garnished with the contents of a festive box of Quality Street.

Now, according to the natural rhythm of the Christmas glutton, this is where the thin red line of cranberry sauce should be drawn. The glutton should graciously retire, once again, to the sofa and content himself with the occasional Big Purple One and contribute the odd burp or hiccup to the festive mood.

Last year I crossed that thin red line. Late at night, with the most recent contents of my gullet slipping down so as to make a smidgeon of room, I ventured back towards the kitchen. It was an act of insanity, like a soldier in a First World War trench becoming the third man to take a light of his cigarette, in the full knowledge that the German sniper, alerted by the light of the first man, and his round chambered during the second, will have his finger at the ready. Yet I was greedy and weak and what better way to watch ITV’s Murder on the Orient Express than with a lapful of tuck?

The pain in my chest kicked in around 11pm. A deep, stabbing sensation as if my ribcage had been encased in a vice. I focused on David Suchet’s twirly moustache and waited for the pain to recede, yet it become more persistent, so I decided to stretch out on the sofa and began a series of meditative slow breathing exercises in which I visualised the discomfort as a feather being gently blow further and further away with each breath.

Obviously the discomfort took great umbrage at such a patronising personification and preferred instead to recast itself not as a feather but as a scalding red hot poker that, having been forced through my ribs was now intent on reaching my heart.

For about 25 minutes I pondered whether I had, in fact, eaten myself into a coronary thrombosis and if the correct response was to immediately dial 999, but a careful review of the symptoms led to the conclusion of a case of indigestion of Himalayan proportions.

“Never again” I muttered from my recumbent position on the carpet, to which I had moved after pacing the living room in a bout of chest-clutching anguish: “Never again”.

Well, from my lips to the ears of the wee baby Jesus for lo if it is not so. For as I type I am without the centre piece of my festive feast, namely a large goose and chestnut pie, which, in a flurry of exuberance over Downton Abbey, we ordered from Fortnum & Mason on 20 November with an assured arrival date of 15 December. I still remain hopeful of a Christmas miracle and a delivery today, if not I will inevitably become one of the Christmas Eve casualties fighting in the aisle of Lidl’s over the last Turduckin.

Am I alone in thinking the television schedules have been similarly stuffed to bursting point with cookery programmes this Christmas?

Everyone who has ever waved a pan in anger appears to have had their own four-part series extolling a brand new spin on turkey and cranberry sauce. We appear to have become Dickensian in our adoration of festive food and it remains a seasonal treat to re-read the most mouthwatering passages from A Christmas Carol. It is as if, as adults, food has taken the place once filled by toys.

Yet, in many ways, it all serves as a distraction from our daily lives. I don’t know about you, but the older I get the more uncomfortable I am with the long winter nights.

I can feel my mood sinking with the sun, which is why for the past couple of years I’ve taken comfort on 21 December and the passing of the winter solstice and the shortest day of the year.

I can’t help but think of the year as stretched between wickets in a game of cricket. On Wednesday, we rounded one and began heading back towards the longest day of summer. Each day is slowly lengthening. Christmas, as we know, was bolted onto the old winter festivals, but it seems appropriate that a story of such hope and light takes place at the darkest time of year.

There is a darkness at the heart of Christmas, one which is as important as any angelic light. You only have to look around you to see it.

There are the surface tensions and bickering, the envy and regret and then there is the deeper depression and fear that seems to creep out between all the tinsel and baubles.

It seems to me there is the Christmas for children, with all that it entails: wonder and presents, but for the rest of us it is a festival through which we just try and muddle through.

I think we would be happier if we peeled off the rictus smile of the mandatory cheerful and admitted the difficulties it presents: the loneliness many endure.

For me, the best and funniest programme on television as well as the most sincere in its portrayal of the difficulties of living a life of Christian faith is Rev on BBC 2, in which Tom Hollander plays a Church of England minister in a run-down inner London parish. He drinks, he smokes, he argues with his wife, the pews are empty, he’s bedevilled by his Archdeacon Robert and he’s so frazzled by the endless demands of the season of goodwill that he misses a final visit to his dying friend and spins off on an emotional rant at Midnight mass.

Yet for all the laughs there is a genuine attempt to convey the numinous: the impossible concept of the child in the manger. Each year, as I struggle with the central message of Christmas, the concept of a benign force that loves us all, one which appears ever more incredible and outlandish in the age of the Higgs boson, I can’t help but hoping it is true. For me, in spite of my gluttony, Christmas and the light in the darkness, have always been about hope.