A vaccinated Tartan Army celebrating en masse (not on Zoom) will be one heck of a party – Vladimir McTavish

With half of the country in lockdown, everybody seems to getting hot under the collar about whether or not we are going to get a “normal” Christmas this year.
The Tartan Army will be hoping they can sing Yes Sir I Can Boogie as a massed choir at the Euros next year after getting their Covid vaccinations (Picture: Neil Hanna)The Tartan Army will be hoping they can sing Yes Sir I Can Boogie as a massed choir at the Euros next year after getting their Covid vaccinations (Picture: Neil Hanna)
The Tartan Army will be hoping they can sing Yes Sir I Can Boogie as a massed choir at the Euros next year after getting their Covid vaccinations (Picture: Neil Hanna)

Is it really that important if we don’t? I may be in a minority of one, but I really don’t mind giving Christmas a miss this year. In fact, I would be quite happy if we never had “normal” Christmas ever again.

Let me remind you what “normal” Christmas was like. Instead of strolling through Princes Street Gardens in a leisurely manner to catch your train at Waverley, you had to fight your way through a scrum of several thousand people standing around a grotesque theme park, drinking their “authentic” German lager at seven quid a pint. You heard the same playlist of hits from the Seventies blaring out of every shop doorway at full volume on a continuous loop. There were fights at taxi ranks, and vomit on the pavement. How “festive”!

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And my job became a chore over the festive season. From the beginning of December, it is not unusual for audiences at comedy gigs to be too drunk to stand up before the show even starts. I’ve seen a works do carry on singing 1970s Christmas hits when the first comedian was on stage. Hand on heart, who is going to miss sharing the city centre with staff nights out who are fighting drunk by 7pm, and have only carried on drinking because the boss is paying for their booze?

Let’s wait until the Euros next June to get on our party clothes and start dancing. Hopefully, by then, we will all have had our Covid jabs. Indeed, a Scottish summer will provide ideal conditions for rolling out the vaccine, which will need to be stored at temperatures as low as minus 80 celsius, which I believe is the seasonal average for Aberdeen.

It will be a boost to have supporters in the stadiums and watching the games in fan zones across the country. Wearing a kilt and a ginger Jimmy wig, getting legless and dancing in fountains, singing “Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie” just won’t seem the same if we can only do it on Zoom.

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