There are many appalling features to December as it is currently organised, not the least being the clichés which are delivered with the same focused ruthlessness as a St Valentine's Day massacre.
"All set for Christmas, are you?" Or, "Oh I think it's far too commercial these days." Or, "I think we should return to the true spirit of Christmas." Or, "At the end of the day, it's all about the kids."
The last time I went into Dublin on a December day, the capital apparently was hosting the Olympic Games, the World Cup, both of the All-Ireland Finals and yet another Retreat From Moscow (this time, the really big one). The streets resembled a vast breeding battery-farm for people, all of whom - to judge from their ill-tempered demeanour - were suffering from weeping piles which made walking impossible. So nobody actually moved, though apparently trying to, but instead endlessly snarled, like a leashed bulldog straining to get at a cat six inches away from its furthermost reach.
Now I happen to know that in the good old days (the acronym for which, you know, gives us the modern English word for the deity) the pre-Christmas period was marked by a universal and decorous gentility. Only people of a certain class were allowed into Dublin city centre to shop, though members of the menial and labouring social strata were permitted to enter to perform the humble commercial chores for which their modest talents qualified them. They were, thank G.O.D., certainly not allowed to attempt to purchase anything.
In that halcyon epoch, the managers of Brown Thomas, Switzer's and Clery's, all wearing tails, would personally welcome one at their department store entrances and escort one through their largely empty premises, waving aside all attempts at payment. Assistants curtsied at one's approach. In Arnott's Lady Annie Arnott would do the honours, clicking her fingers at minions who would undulatingly fawn and supplicate in obsequious welcome. Sturdy assistants followed in one's wake, tottering under the weight of carefully wrapped purchases, before bearing them to one's Daimler burbling gently outside.
Snow would be falling into a crunchily-clean six-inch carpet, deep and crisp and even, and from it children would weld perfect snowballs for hurling at cheery, laughing, helmeted police officers. Carol-singers beneath candlelit lanterns would gather at either end of Grafton Street, warbling God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, The Twelve Days of Christmas and The Holly and the Ivy in perfect harmony, and chortling, apple-cheeked street vendors would sell hot chestnuts from their braziers, or steaming mince pies from heated stalls. Ice-skaters performed artful parabolas on the river Liffey, pausing only to give a welcoming cheer to the post-coach, its horn ringing over the gladsome quays, as laughing urchins with long scarves scampered after it, waving their caps or bowling their hoops, accompanied by little dogs.
Horse-drawn sleighs, their bells ringing, bore happy shoppers around the city, and ladies in bonnets, their hands in muffs, were escorted through the streets by young captains of hussars. Dublin's pubs wafted the odours of cloves, lemon and heated whiskey into the crisp air outside, and within, the fireplace was the forum for the wisdom of the cold.
My memory is adamant on this. The entire Christmas season was absolutely perfect in the G.O.D. The same absolutely certainly cannot be said of the month of December today, when people of a certain class who were once confined to their remote estates both by an entirely justified - and indeed desirable - poverty and by the prudent ordinances of a kindly but firm set of city fathers, are allowed to rub shoulders with oneself. By Jove, some of these blighters - can you believe it? - even have these new credit cards thingummies: why, I believe I actually saw one of them driving a motor-car, as if it were actually his own! I'm not joking.
Where did it all go wrong? Some blame that bally business at the General Post Office in whatever year it was, but not being too hot on historical matters I wouldn't be too sure about that. However, I do recall sensing a certain unease some years back when an under-footman said he intended to take an hour off on Christmas morning to spend with his family. Naturally, one put the foot down at this: else who would peel one's tangerines? Please, do not suggest one of the serving wenches could perform such a service: they are only human and I would not be so insensitive as to permit one of them alone in my company, lest she make a fool of herself.
My point, however, stands. Christmas is not what it used to be: the perfect season for perfect gentlemen of breeding, discernment and distinction to acquire one's purchases at leisure, with provender naturally coming from Smyth's on the Green. Today Smyth's, mysteriously, is gone. So too is Switzer's, with Brown Thomas being where Switzer's used to be. And all sorts of upstart ragamuffins and vulgar banditti actually compete for shop assistants' attention, and - would you believe this? - on occasion actually manage to secure it ahead of one! If one actually paid taxes, one would be seriously tempted to ask: Is this what one pays taxes for?
No, there was nothing quite like the Christmas in the G.O.D., when the poor had very conspicuous rickets, chilblains and impetigo, and were therefore quite unmistakeable, even when plumped up by a temporary improvement in fortune. People really knew their places back then. Oh for the past. It was quite perfect you know, in every way.