A few days ago an elderly acquaintance, Rose,
returned from a Christmas holiday abroad to find that her favourite department
store was not having its annual January sale. “ They said they had it before
Christmas!” she complained. “You can’t have the January sales before
Christmas”. She could not be mollified and it became clear that her whole sense
of time and security was temporarily dislocated. For the last twelve years of
her life she had always brought her house a present from that store in that
January sale and now the rhythm of her personal year had been jarred.
Most of us feel disrupted when something that
we rely on changes, altering our routine. Sometimes the level of the impact is
initially surprising. 15-year-old Amanda, for example, enjoyed her best friend
Sophie’s visits any time of day and night except the ring-fenced period when
she watched the television soap “Neighbours” which Sophie didn’t like. “I know
it sounds mad when I was spending all Christmas longing to see her. But I did
not want to miss the programme and she turned up early just when it had begun.
She switched it off and we ended up having an argument and it took a couple of
hours to make up”.
76-year-old George was deeply distressed when
his daughter’s late arrival to pick him up meant that he missed hearing the
Queen’s Speech. “I know she didn’t do it on purpose. She was busy and she did
have me to stay for the whole holiday. But somehow it wasn’t Christmas without
the Queen’s Speech”.
For Rose, Amanda and George something that
clarified their existence within time had been removed without their permission
leaving them uncertain. Whilst internal makeup and external circumstances
dictate how long it takes someone to recover from everyday knocks, these kinds
of experiences highlight the powerful impact of routine and ritual in everyday
life.
With Christmas and the New Year still within
memory it is a useful time to consider them. Whether we are secular or
religious these dates provide us with the annual security of fixed calendar
points which, in addition to daily and weekly routines, night and day, the
seasons, personal birthdays and national holidays, give us ways of marking our
existence in a mysterious universe in a temporal way.
When teaching infants I remember four year
old Mary asking me worriedly “Miss- what happened to the old year? Why does
there have to be a new one?” Parents with young children and infant school
teachers will also relish (or fear) the complex questions from mini
philosophers “Why does the clock stop at 12?” “Why are there seven days in a
week?” or even “Why is there a week?” Factual answers as to which civilisation
measured time in what way and which Norse God which day of the week is named
after fail to deal with the philosophical enquiry beneath.
These thoughts are prompted by a letter from
Mrs D. “Welcome 1995! My mother of 89 is thrilled to be alive and looking
forward to a 90th year, my husband of 58 thinks he is now past it, my 28 year
old and his wife held a glittering New Year’s Eve party and didn’t invite us,
my grandchild of 3 cried because she had not grown in the night, and our 15
year old has still not forgiven us for not allowing her boyfriend to come for
Christmas lunch. We said he could come next year but she doesn’t think she will
be going out with him then so she says we have spoilt that forever.”
As well as highlighting the problems of being
the “middle” generation Mrs D’s letter raises many time issues. For the
middle-aged and elderly who have negotiated their feelings about mortality,
time is something to appreciate. For the very young time is something that only
grownups and older children are proud possessors of. The 3 year old who wants
to grow over- night (or the 12 year old who, on her semi-serious Christmas list
wrote- “breasts” as her most longed-for present) has a very different
relationship with time than the 58 year old who is worried about the tasks
ahead. Mrs D’s fifteen year old understands that her relationship may be
temporary. However, that fact has had the effect of making the festival date
even more powerful. Christmas 1994 was the only Christmas her friend could have
come to lunch on. The painful awareness of the transience of such relationships
has been displaced on to the solid calendar.
What about the inclusions and exclusions on
special events? Even now there are ruffled Christmas and New Year feelings.
When events occur every day of the week they retain social privacy or
invisibility. “No-one asks me in the week if my son has phoned me or taken me
out” said one resident in an old people’s home. “But because everyone shares
Christmas and the New Year everyone thinks they can ask what you are doing and
where you are going and that shames me”. College students can feel similarly
about weekends. “It is alright to be busy working every night in the week but
everyone wants to know who you have seen at the weekend” explained a second
year arts student.
Polly, 35 and single, takes a winter sports
holiday each Christmas. “It is my way of avoiding these issues”, she explained.
“People think I am doing something exotic and don’t burden me with those
questions - also it means I don’t have to face being either with family I don’t
want to be with or on my own.”
Whilst some families maintain social
closeness throughout the life cycle others face the realisation that whilst the
parent/s were in charge of social decisions earlier on (Mrs D and her
daughter’s boyfriend) often putting immediate family before friends, their
grown-up children (Mrs D’s son) might not. Did Mrs D not invite her daughter’s
boyfriend because she didn’t like him or because Christmas traditionally is “just”
the family and is her son’s party an antidote to that? Whichever, a New Year
(relying on the simple number 1- even easier than the ten commandments that
require two hands!) gives us a chance to reflect. Happy New Year and letters
are welcome to be considered for this column although they cannot be answered
personally.