Here’s a toast to New Year, better than the last- Alex Cole-Hamilton

When I think of the Christmases of my childhood, the years I remember most are the ones that were nearly a disaster, but then came good.

Like the year I spent all Christmas eve with my dad trying to weld a metal plate to the inside rear of the wood stove to stop water from the boiler spewing into the living room; or the year I went completely deaf 2 days before; or the time I nearly burned down the house by leaving a wicker log basked too near to an electric fire on Christmas morning. In every case, Christmas day came and went without a hitch and felt all the more magical for having done so.

The magic of this time of year has been rekindled for me in adulthood in part by the light and wonder of my children, but I still find miracles in it too and I’m not just talking about the little victories of Christmas, like the last packet of bread-sauce mix in Sainsburys.

With all the pressure and expectation that we’ve built into the yuletide season, it’s a time that is often pregnant with drama and not all festive disasters come good. But in these unhappy days, it feels like we are all living through a nightmare before Christmas and on a planetary scale.

I feel it completely. I feel that hesitancy at planning for Christmas dinner, where even though that dinner is state-sanctioned, I’ll be mixing with another household for the first time in months. I feel the anxiety about going food shopping for that dinner and may try a Monday morning dawn raid on our nearest supermarket. I also feel that ever-present threat of the text from a contact tracer that could torpedo our plans in a heartbeat.

But we’re all in the same boat. Everybody needs some comfort and joy right now. We have to keep the virus in mind in absolutely everything we do, and for the first time there’s resolutely no obligation for anyone to host or visit this year. But there will still be miracles. Not for everyone by any stretch, but I smile every time I think of those grandparents meeting new babies for the first time; the marriage proposals for couples who survived lockdown apart and the millions of after dinner games that will take place over Zoom for the first time, (GRANDMA, YOU ARE STILL ON MUTE!!!).

We are social animals and Christmas, like Eid, Hanukah and Diwali is a festival of sociability in our global psyche. That flies in the face of everything we’ve been told these past 9 months and it will be different and difficult this year. There will be no ceilidhs, buffets, or Christmas nights out. But there can be respite and there can be hope.

Historians suggest that the actual birth of the historical Jesus was did not fall in December. The Roman Emperor Constantine moved it to mid-winter in an effort to usurp Yuletide, the Pagan festival of rebirth. But a lot of the Pagan sentiment about new life made it through nonetheless. Sure enough Santa will give way to Hogmanay and with it my favourite New Year toast- “Better than the last.”