The Little Lady Agency

Ah, Christmas. Presents, carols, weaving off to midnight communion in the village church under the influence of mulled wine… what could be more British? For any Americans reading (hello!) here are some equally long-standing traditions you may not have heard of…

The Ringing of the Radio Times
For years, we only had three TV channels in the UK. Imagine! Three! And two of them were the BBC! Now we have a few more, but the old tradition of buying the bumper fortnight edition of the Radio Times – the magazine listing all the channels’ seasonal offerings – persists. The quickest member of the family begins by ringing all their programmes of choice in red pen, so as to begin the annual argument about what to watch when. (This still happens in my house, despite there being three televisions, and every member of the family being over thirty years old.)

The Buying of Nuts
The only time of the year most English people buy nuts is at Christmas. Then, for some reason, we head to Tesco like a bunch of deranged squirrels, to stock up on walnuts for Grandad to crack open with his teeth, and chestnuts, for everyone to discuss roasting on an open fire. Those are the open fires that most people don’t have, or, if they do, they aren’t allowed to light them in cities, because of air pollution.

The Buying of the Terry’s Chocolate Orange
This dates back to the unofficial Christmas carol much beloved of older generations: ‘When I was Young We had an Orange in our Stocking and Lump of Coal if We Were Lucky’. Massive quantities of chocolate oranges are purchased and eaten throughout December. If they only had Vitamin C in, it would save the National Health Service a fortune. See also, Toblerones, sugared almonds, Turkish Delight, and marrons glaces.

The Yearning for Snow
Our national expectations of Christmas are based on Charles Dickens (for which I suppose we have to take responsibility) and the Coca-Cola ‘Holidays are coming!’ advert. Every year, bookmakers rake in a fortune from wistful punters betting on a white Christmas, despite the fact that there’s a light drizzle nearly every year, and then a mini-blizzard in February, by which time it’s a massive inconvenience, and not a charming backdrop for robins and Victorian mail coaches.

The Driving
Great Britain’s a small country, and so at Christmas, one is expected to do the rounds of one’s entire family, from Leominster to Barrow-in-Furness. In celebration of Mary and Joseph’s donkey-bound trip to Jerusalem, the festive period is spent in cars, crawling on the M1 from one relative to the next, in order to sleep in a stable – or, in modern terms, on a fold-up bed in the study, next to our aunt’s flatulent spaniel.

The Round Robin letter
The ultimate Round Robin letter is, of course, the Queen’s Speech, which is broadcast at 3pm on Christmas Day, just as everyone’s about to tuck into the main meal. Her Maj trots out all the lovely foreign trips she and Phil have been on, what the kids have been up to, some hilarious anecdotes about the grandchildren, and then winds up by wishing for world peace and a good year for the marrows. It’s basically your ex-next-door neighbours’ Tuscany-and-oboe-exams writ large. My godmother has never missed one, despite the fact they are the same every year. (Apart from that one time when everyone got divorced, she had a big house fire, and all manner of saucy pics were printed in the papers. But we’ve all had years like that, right?)