53) Merry DAWSmas to you and yours. (Merry Day After the Winter Solstice.)

Dickens was wrong.

Scrooge really wasn’t all that bothered about Christmas.  At least, not when compared with me. Compared with the vitriolic, visceral, unremitting loathing that I have for Christmas, Scrooge was pretty much take it or leave it. Even accounting for the much freer use of expletives that you find today, I can, when contemplating Christmas, and indeed, on many occasions have, come out with something a good deal saltier than ‘Bah, humbug’.

I might have liked Christmas once, when it meant waking up at half past four in the morning, desperate to be the first person in my bedroom to get his hands on the new Beano Annual. But frankly, once you’re past your units, the pull of Desperate Dan does start to wane. There was, when my daughter Hannah was little, some joy to be had in watching her shred the wrapping that, the night before, had taken me hours to lovingly construct around her Barbie Dolls and Beanie Babies. Yes, of course, there was joy. Mixed in with a certain horrified fascination. It was like watching a shoal of piranha strip the flesh from a human limb – only in double time.

The big problem with Christmas for me has always been my birthday.  That comes on January 3rd. As a child I was convinced I was being short changed because no-one was going to give me a decent birthday present when they’d just lashed out for Christmas. “It seemed silly to get you two ordinary presents so we’ve got you one big, special, combined present for Christmas and your birthday.” Yes, thank you Auntie Vera and Uncle Joe, thank you very much. Like I’m really buying that.

And then, as you get older, probably when you hit 40, certainly when you get past 50, it’s hard to think of a birthday as being much more than a staging post to oblivion. No, the only people over the age of 10 whom I can imagine getting anything out of birthdays are those two American sisters who wrote “Happy Birthday to You” and were until very recently still getting royalties for it. (It’s true, I promise you.)

One other anniversary of misery to mention: more or less half-way between Christmas and my birthday, comes New Year’s Eve, an occasion which I have never once, after well over fifty – alright sixty  - goes at it, managed to even remotely enjoy. The pointless build-up  (5…4…3…2…1 - why are we bothering for God’s sake? After 2000 plus years we must know what’s coming by now), the dismal anti-climax, the embarrassed ‘Happy New Years’ to strangers whose happiness or otherwise could hardly mean less to me, the forced jollity at which I’ve always been particularly hopeless –  do you know, on reflection, I actually think I prefer my birthday.

And if all that – the unholy trinity of Christmas, New Year, birthday - weren’t bad enough, there are the short, dismal, sunless days of midwinter to deal with.  I simply hate, hate, hate getting up in the dark.

That’s why my favourite day of the year is December 22nd – the day after the winter solstice, the first day when the days start getting longer again. Except that this year the winter solstice did not take place on December 21st  as I thought we were always taught at school, but on  December 22nd. So this year December 22nd is not my favourite day of the year after all,  but my fifth least favourite day of the year – after Christmas, New Year and my birthday and the winter solstice itself.

Apparently -  I think I have this right now – the winter solstice  can occur on either the 21st or the 22nd. (It all depends on something or other but I’m not sure what.) According to the Daily Telegraph, this year’s winter solstice took place on   on Tuesday December 22nd at 04:49 GMT (Universal time) with the sun rising over Stonehenge at 08:04.

Personally I couldn’t give a toss about what time the sun rises over Stonehenge. It’s what time it rises over Queens Park that I care about, and the earlier the better. And  I care even more about what time the sun sets over Queens Park – the later the better. (Fuck the Scottish farmers is what I say – why should we have to put our clocks back just to please a few Jock sheepshaggers who can’t wait to declare independence and make us have Trident on our side of the border. But I think I may be digressing a bit here.)

So it turns out that this year  December 23rd is my favourite day of the year. 

This may surprise you. You may be thinking, surely June 21st – or possibly the 22nd – which is, of course,  the date of the summer solstice and the longest day of the year – would be my favourite day of the year?  But  you’d be wrong. And the reason you’d be wrong is that you’re not thinking it through. 

You see after June 21st or 22nd  comes the day after the summer solstice which is the day the days start getting shorter again, and I really cannot bear the thought of that. In fact the day after the summer solstice, June 22nd or 23rd – whichever - is my sixth least favourite day of the year. And the certain knowledge that it is coming the next day casts such a long depressing shadow over the day before – the day of the summer solstice on June 21st or, as I think we have firmly established by now, possibly June 22nd – means that it could never be a favourite either.

If I am being completely honest, I start to get depressed about the shortening days on the day after the spring equinox which is on March 21st (or presumably the 22nd). That, as you will know, is the half way point between the winter and summer solstices. The reason the black dogs start barking that day – and this can seem a bit complicated so bear with me – is that it marks the point at which there are fewer days to go to the day when the days start getting shorter again than have passed since the day when they started getting longer. (The day after the winter solstice.) It’s like having five roast potatoes on your plate. The joy is not so much eating them as having them to look forward to. With each one you eat, there is one less to look forward to. And once you pass the half way point – three – you begin to contemplate staring into the abyss, the moment when you have no roast potatoes on your plate at all.

Actually, the roast potato analogy only works so far. Because to avoid staring into the abyss, you could just take a sixth roast potato or if they have all been served up, suddenly shout out, ‘Oh look, isn’t that David Beckham over there!’, and while the person sitting next to you is suddenly distracted,   steal a roast potato off his  plate. (Although if you did do that, you’d probably have to immediately shove the  whole thing in your mouth to stop them from noticing and taking it back, and it could be very hot and you could find yourself having to toss it around the inside of your mouth with your tongue to avoid being burnt and then possibly swallow it whole which could give you horrible indigestion and the prospect of all of that is hardly something to look forward to.)

Even  so, at least options like these might be available in the roast potato scenario whereas the shortest day of the year thing is a done deal, and there is two tenths of fuck all you can do about it.

Except you could emigrate I suppose.

But then you’d just have the shortest day of the year somewhere else. (Even if you went to live somewhere bang on the equator, where, I believe, the hours of sunlight  are exactly the same length every day. As a matter of fact, that would be the worst possible place to go. Not only would it be bloody borinig but  every day would be the shortest day of the year and that wouldn’t do at all.)

So, anyway, as I have been saying, this year December 23rd is* my favourite day of the year, and rather than wish everyone a Merry Christmas, a day which I think I may have mentioned that I hate,  I have elected to do something completely different. Doesn’t it  make so much more sense to wish people merriment on a day which makes you, yourself, merry rather than on a day you want to shoot yourself? 

Merry Day After the Winter Solstice is a bit of a mouthful I’ll grant you, but once you just use the acronym, it’s rather jolly.

‘We wish you a Merry Dawsmas, 

We wish you a Merry Dawsmas, 

We Wish You A Merry Dawsmas, 

and a Happy New Year.’ 

Shit. Forgot about that last bit, still there’s no specific refrerence to New Years Eve so I think we can let it pass. 

*You may have noticed that, sadly, I have managed - or, rather, mismanaged - and not for the first time - to miss my deadline. 

Hope your Day After The Winter Solstice was as merry as  mine.