Just Stop Oil, Extinction Rebellion and the like have remained strangely silent about one of the world’s most recalcitrant climate offenders. Nicholas of Bari started out as a nice old clergyman, beloved for his habit of giving secret gifts.
Between them, Coca-Cola and the poet who wrote ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas managed to pimp out the once-blameless Greco-Roman do-gooder into the notorious neo-liberal toy-monger, Santa Claus.
Here’s a recidivist transgressor against society’s mores if ever there was one. He clearly suffers elevated blood pressure and a dangerously high BMI, but has for decades refused to remediate either.
He travels by methane-emitting reindeer, thus also exploiting an endangered species. His business model is blatant serial home invasion. A mass-consumerist who primarily targets children, his North Pole labour practices were surely the blueprint for that modern industrial scourge, the sweat shop.
Modern children remain susceptible to Santa’s enticements, even though they know it’s not him who brings them presents. It’s Amazon.
Still, here in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s the grown-ups who suffer the most acute Santa-derangement. The lifestyle magazines reported that, in line with Bake-Off, MasterChef and My Kitchen Rules mania, food items would be the motifs du jour for this year’s trees. Sure enough, at Astier de Villatte, purveyors of elegant homewares to the French for close on 30 years, dangling fried eggs, gilded bottles of mayonnaise, bunches of asparagus and half a coconut were among the glittery baubles recommended. Who wouldn’t want a half-open tin of sardines, a tinselled head of broccoli, a cocktail shrimp and a box of instant macaroni cheese sparkling on their tree? For the more discerning foodie: a pearlised set of dentures.
The cultured tree-bedecker could also select Astier’s baubles of Britney Spears, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, that great exponent of Christmas joy Edgar Allan Poe, or perhaps a monkey dressed as Marie Antoinette.
When it came to outdoor decoration, results varied. Unlike Downunder, where lights can’t be seen till 9pm-ish, at this end it’s dark as early as 4pm. That makes the expense of Christmas lighting more justifiable – or, as it appears here in Dublin, mandatory.
Scarcely a tree was unlit. Merely to string some pretty lights around a few branches was to show a lack of commitment. A decent sense of community spirit dictated giant glowing orbs and star-bursts, colour-themed topiary tableaux, 9-foot hedges spider-webbed top-to-bottom with phosphorescence, fences dripping glowing wisteria garlands and entire buildings criss-cross-wrapped in gold ribbons made of winking lights.
A pub that didn’t riff a department store Santa’s grotto would have been shamed. Woe betide any building proprietor whose interior stairway handrails were not writhing with holly and glowing pine cones.
The Antipodes are spared the tradition of Christmas sweaters on grounds of temperature. Here, it’s considered acceptable to wear the most gore-blimey Christmas pullover any time in December, even without the bashful excuse that it was lovingly knitted by one’s mammy.
Chances are it was selected from among dozens of chain store “styles” on offer each year. From discreet fair isle to cheesy slogans, one must make a choice. And no, this writer did not buy the M&S one with a Santa-hat-wearing mallard, captioned “Christmas Quacker”. They’d sold out.
And seasonable festooning extended to pets. I didn’t see any holly-printed poo bags, but responsible dog-walkers illuminated their canines with festive winking lights, which, to be fair, did aid visibility.
These were on top of the festive sweaters without which no Irish whippet, Frenchie or dachshund would have been allowed out.
The writer certainly did not stoop to decorating her sheepdogs. They wouldn’t keep still.
