A Christmas Carol: the Christmas concert

It’s the end of term here today. Time for a Christmas sing-song. To be honest, it’s the first time we’ve graduated to attending a concert, rather than a nativity. It feels appropriate to mark it somehow. I keep writing about A Formal Feeling as one of my Christmas reads. One of the elements I like …

A Christmas Carol: Christmas films

The thing about Christmas films is the looove. Love to the extent that small children will watch them, repeatedly, even in August. That’s how much love. I haven’t had to watch full-on snow-and-Santa outside of December too many times. But there are a couple of kids’ DVDs in our collection where the Christmas version seems …

A Christmas Carol: Christmas parties

Ah, the Christmas party. Top contender for most feared Christmas experience? Or is that a little harsh? Clothes shops think otherwise. Let there be little black dresses, and let them be sparkly too. Hairdressers gear up for the workload that goes with other people’s party season. You know what they say. Introverts and extroverts both …

A Christmas Carol: Christmas TV

It’s the uniting of the nation, innit? That’s the theory, anyway. Food may not do it; religious choice may not do it. Weather, size of town, size of presents – or not. Christmas is one thing – and many things. But at points, there is the promise of some special means of coming together. And …