The Christian West has developed an incurable addiction to Christmas. Those of us lucky enough to have savings will deplete them, while those of us not so lucky will dig into our Christmas dinners up to our eyeballs in hock. For that one day, Christians scattered throughout the world will scurry, lemming-like, back to what was Mammy and Daddy's table. A helter-skelter trip, destination: emotional nightmare. A day of role-play and counter role-play; a day when Granny and Grand-da become Mammy and Daddy again, and Mammy and Daddy become son and daughter, brother and sister, and, ultimately cat and dog. A vicious circle of addiction, gratification, ruination, destruction; pushed on us by bright lights, tinsel and nostalgia.
Many turkeys ago, I decided to cut the guano and opt out of Christmas. I headed off to Kenya, rounding the Cape of Good Hope in early December, but due to storms in the Mozambique Channel we were forced to take shelter at various ports along the coast: Dar es Salaam, Zanzibar, Pemba and finally Mombasa. The plan was simple: north to Nairobi, then due south to the foothills of Kilimanjaro on the border of Tanzania for Christmas day. But that particular Christmas, the Mau Mau - a secret society of Kikuyu tribesmen with a particular dislike of all Europeans and European customs - were rumoured to be active again. My personal dislike of the European custom of celebrating Christmas would probably not be enough to guarantee my safe passage. So, instead, I headed north across parched lands towards Ethiopia.
The camel dealer guaranteed me that the beast could store enough water in its hump to survive two weeks in the desert. I had no reason to doubt him, for he seemed a fair and honest trader. But nobody told the camel we'd be trudging for the full two weeks, so unbeknownst to me the camel drank only enough water to last him two days. Needless to say, by day three the poor animal ran out of aqua vitae and keeled over on to his hump. I had no choice but to shanks mare it.
Eight days crawling around the sand dunes; delirious, starving, skin pitted with sand and naked, before I was rescued by a hunting party from a little-known tribe whose name escapes me. In appearance they were somewhere between the tall Masai tribesmen of East Africa and the tiny Pygmy people of Central Africa. I suppose you could say they were a bit like ourselves. An incredibly friendly and hospitable people, so I accepted an invitation to stay with them over the festive season.
As it so happened, they were also celebrating the birth of their god. Their god? A woman born of earth, wind, fire and water, raised by wild animals and thus embodying the speed of the cheetah, the strength of the rhinoceros, the agility of a gazelle and the endurance of a camel. When I told them about Mary and Joseph, the Immaculate Conception and the Three Wise Men following the star, they just fell about the place laughing. We sat down to a majestic meal of various root vegetables, boiled and baked, the centrepiece being a large roasted bird-like creature, except it was covered in scales rather than feathers and inside its beak were rows of tiny serrated teeth, stuffed with millet and herbs - it was something else! But tasted like chicken.
And later, as we sat watching the sun go down on the birthday of our two gods, we relaxed into an oat and berry pudding, smothered in a sweet giraffe milk topping. Before we retired for the day, I shared with them what little I knew about my God: the message of peace, love and forgiveness, the sacrifice, the body and blood and the ultimate resurrection. One of their holy men asked me why Jesus's birthday always fell on the 25th of December, while the date of his death varied year after year. I explained that it had something to do with the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox. He respectfully threw his eyes to heaven and said "Stars? Moons? You Irish are pagans, yes?" It occurred to me that if he perceived me to be pagan, well then maybe I was pagan, because we are never what we ourselves think we are.
I arrived home to Ireland on the twelfth of January, glad to have missed all the fuss and madness. And although it was the last time I actively avoided Christmas, every year since then, in an effort to express my Yuletide individualism, I poke out my copy of the film Easter Parade and give it a whirl.
Easter Parade is not the greatest film of all time. Judy Garland is no Ginger Rogers, and Fred Astaire was only invited out of retirement after Gene Kelly twisted his ankle playing football. But Easter Parade is a carnival of colour, with an Oscarwinning montage of memorable musical numbers including, We're a Couple of Swells and A Fella With an Umbrella. It's a good, clean, fun, song-and-dance, romantic-situation comedy. If nothing else, it will take your mind off men in red suits. You could do a lot worse. Keep an eye out for Fred and Judy's comic dance with flying feathers which is reminiscent of Astaire's handling of Ginger Rogers' feathered gown in Top Hat.
So there you have it: Easter Parade, my annual stand against the overpowering ritual that is Christmas. But tradition is like a rolling snowball, and over the past few years my family has taken to gathering in my place on Christmas night to watch Fred and Judy and sing along with some of Irving Berlin's greats. Easter Parade has now become an integral part of our Christmas ritualistic addiction. White Christmas eat your heart out! Maybe we are addicted to Christmas - but it's hard to beat Cold Turkey on St Stephen's Day.
