IT'S A DAD'S LIFE: Beware, there’s a crazy Calvinist consumer dichotomy taking over
AH, THE LULL. Christmas mayhem has passed, New Year mayhem, such as it is these days, is about to begin. It’s during the lull that you mark time. You might start a little light reading. You might price special offers in nearby gyms that you pay for but never actually use. You might even shut down your work head, lock the kids in the basement and encourage your in-laws to leave. With a pitchfork.
The lull is my favourite time of year. I just wish more shops were shut. I wish that the January sales didn’t start until January, that you had to batten down the hatches and survive on the giant box of Tayto, leftover turkey and Brussels sprouts.
During the lull most of your sustenance should come from afternoon pints of porter supped in front of a turf fire and the only shopping should be for bacon fries and change for the pool table. The man behind the bar and his ilk, provider of pints, fries and pool shrapnel, should be the only man working in these days.
But the lull is now an endangered event. There are far too many infractions on this downtime. The sales . . . ah listen, I will take a surface-to-idiot missile to anyone who suggests hanging around Arnotts is a good idea because they have great tablecloths on special.
Not only that, but then there’s all the activity. The kids allegedly have to be fed and exercised, which is taken by many to mean we all have to march up and down mountains for four hours before you’re entitled to a bowl of soup.
There’s a crazy Calvinist consumer dichotomy taking over the lull. By flaying yourself on the hilltops and hugging rocks in the morning, you are somehow entitled to spend all the money you don’t have on things you don’t need in the afternoon.
As for the swimming. When did this start? There was always the legendary dip at the Forty Foot in Dublin for the festively bonkers, but now you can’t turn around for the week between Christmas and New Year without bumping into a shivering, semi-clothed wreck returning from come charity dunking in a coastal ice bath. As the first wracking bronchial spasm takes hold he’ll launch into a tirade about the bracing effervescence of the Atlantic spray and how he feels enlivened and enriched by the experience. It’s December and we’re in Ireland, this is something you’re never going to sell me.
The last thing I want to do is give the kids the impression that all this is normal. They’ll grow up thinking there’s a sort of annual balance sheet that needs to be filled every year, around now. The only thing that needs filling during the lull is your belly and your sleep quota for the whole month.
Every Christmas I have to fight my corner on this topic. My in-laws are mountain walkers and sea swimmers all year round. They will probably all live to be 150 and eventually keel over for the last time while pushing a boulder up Croagh Patrick with grand pianos strapped to their backs.
The family I grew up in is at the opposite end of the spectrum. It was not uncommon for one of us to collapse into a nap from fatigue on the kitchen floor, having made the journey from the living room in search of leftover stuffing to accompany a bowl of trifle. We worshipped at the altar of lull, knowing that we needed to conserve energy in anticipation of New Year debauchery.
New Year debauchery isn’t what it used to be. The kids still tend to rise obscenely early on January 1st and also expect to be fed and clothed during that first week much as they are for the rest of the year. The cheek. As a result, the five-day extravaganza that was the turn of the year is massively foreshortened, non-existent even.
Some would say then that there is no real need for the lull if the only purpose it serves is akin to carbo-loading before a marathon. You should get out there, climb those mountains and revel in the bracing winds.
Wrong. The lull is an entity unto itself, a standalone necessity. My kids will learn the importance of hour-long lavatory visits with the sports supplement tucked under arm. They will understand the importance of James Bond in the popular canon and accept that Sean will always be number one, no matter how beefy Daniel Craig gets.
I will have satisfaction. I will lie still for many days.