Another voice

Perfect yuletide celebration

Auberon Waugh

Thegreat religious revival which I have often remarked on this page plainly makes up in enthusiasm what it lacks in numbers. According to the UK Mission Handbook (The Bible Society/Evangelical Alliance £9.95) there was a significant decline in church attendance between 1970 and 1980. Methodists led the field, with a 19 per cent reduction in church membership, but the Church of England (15 per cent) and Roman Catholics (14 per cent) were not far behind.

Yet the impressive figure remains that 17 per cent of the adult population — more than one in six — still goes to church regularly. Others may not find it impressive at all, but shockingly low or shockingly high, according to taste. In 1851, apparent- ly, 45 per cent of the adult population went to church regularly. I continue to remain impressed by the figure of one in six Britons as churchgoers. This refers only to Chris- tians, incidentally. If Moslems, Sikhs, Bud- dhists, Hindus, Jews and minor Old Testa- ment sects are included, the figure is con- siderably higher.

But if the figure is accurate, then it must follow that Christmas is more celebrated as a religious festival than many people realise. For as long as I can remember, peo- ple have been moaning about the secularisa- tion of the feast, as if they could remember a period when it was any different. One of the first poems I ever learned was by old Sir Lawrence (Tony') Jones, of the Victorian childhood, Edwardian youth, Georgian middle age etc: `A pert young angel plucked the Master's dress: "This picture of a snowman comes from earth.

It celebrates a certain person's birth. Guess, Lord, whose?" The Master could not guess.'

Those who deplore the irreligion of Christmas observance choose to ignore that it was a pagan festival long before the Christians adopted it. December 25, the last day of the winter Saturnalia which ran for a whole week of debauchery and licensed in- subordination, was celebrated as the feast of Mithra, the Persian god of light, whose cult reached such remote and dim outposts of the Roman empire as Britain a good cen- tury before Christianity. The ancient Britons, along with Norsemen, old Swedes and Goths, stretched their Saturnalia to last 12 days and called it 'yule' (OE geola, Old Norse jol, Swedish jut, Gothic juileis) which means no more than the modern Irish word `hooley' (also thought to derive

from the surname Houlahan, hence hooligan).

But Clement Freud is not an ancient Briton, nor even a modern Irishman, a Norseman, an old Swede or a Goth. At first glance he might seem a curious choice by the editor of the Sunday Times colour sup- plement for our guide to the celebrations of Christmas. The editorial introduction is suitably reassuring:

`If you've been following our LOOK Countdown to Christmas you should be well on your way to a perfect yuletide celebration. Here is the second part of Cle- ment Freud's day-by-day, step-by-step guide to a great Christmas ... '

It is only when one tries to follow Mr Freud's guide to a great Christmas day by day, step by step that one begins to have one's doubts. On the first day of Christmas Mr Freud advises us to take the car to France on a day-trip for some last-minute shopping. Among the things we should buy are large jars of Dijon mustard (these are `bargains'), liqueur chocolates, crystallised fruit, tins of salsify, olive oil, wine vinegar and cider. This may seem a fairly eccentric list, since all of them can be bought in England. France is the last place to buy olive oil, where it is expensive and usually over-refined — much less good than the Greek, Spanish and Italian varieties we can buy more cheaply here. But his advice on Christmas drinking is even odder: `Buy all the litres of sound, inexpensive French wine to which you are entitled (Cor- dier wines are excellent but uncheap ...) and take up your spirits allocation in quarter bottles of liqueurs. Cherry and apricot brandies, Grand Marnier and Fram- boise give you a terrific base for Christmas cocktails or milk shakes.'

I was puzzled by his singling out of Cor- dier from all the hundreds of French ship- pers and vineyard owners, since he is not only expensive but also, in my experience, rather bad. Cordier owns Chateaux Gruaud-Larose and Talbot, both of which seem to me to have gone downhill in recent years. But when Mr Freud started urging the poor, rootless readers of the Sunday Times Magazine to spend their Christmas drinking cocktails and milk shakes made from cherry and apricot brandies, Grand Marnier and Framboise, I began to suspect a deliberate attempt at sabotage.

I do not pretend to know why Mr Freud should wish to sabotage the English Christmas, but once the suspicion has arisen, it sticks., An article by Godfrey Smith in the same issue urges the abolition of Christmas altogether and a return to the `old Jewish observances' which, he seems to feel, applied in Britain before the Christian era. Perhaps he is right. Like most Englishmen, I have few ideas about what happened in the Dark Ages after the withdrawal of the Roman legions. Names like 'Merlin' and 'Guinevere' have often seemed slightly suspect. But Mr Freud is more oblique than this. He suggests we spend Christmas Eve boiling some new potatoes to be warmed up and served on Christmas Sunday; that for luncheon on Christmas Day we serve pears with mayon- naise and chopped tarragon; for dinner on the same day we eat a terrible tomato-and- sherry jelly with anchovy toast and grapefruits; that we eat Stilton soup for dinner on Boxing Day, avocado with Stilton dressing for dinner the day after. For breakfast on Christmas Day he suggests we eat scrambled eggs and smoked salmcn, champagne, fresh orange juice, toast, but- ter, honey, marmalade and coffee.

Can all this be serious? Has anybody tried heating up a boiled potato, without noticing the horrible taste of flannel which creeps in? Stilton soup must surely be a joke at any time of year, but over Christmas it looks like an assassination attempt. As wine for Christmas lunch he recommends a Château Chasse-Spleen 1976 and a Château Climens 1975. Those who do not follow these things closely might easily take his ad- vice, since there are many Bordeaux wines of 1976 now drinking well — most par- ticularly those from Pomerol and St Emilion — while the 1976 Sauternes and Barsacs have been drinking splendidly for over 12 months, so why not the 1975s? Alas, the Chasse-Spleen will not be ready for several years, and it would be a crime to drink the Climens now. The first would almost certainly give you a pain, the se- cond, on top of everything else, might easi- ly make you sick.

Is this what Mr Freud wants? Is there some atavistic resentment at work, some ancient tribal vendetta being pursued against Britain's bewildered lower middle class which laps up this sort of rubbish, week after week, in the Sunday Times Magazine? A more plausible explanation might be that Mr Freud, for all his kind heart and best intentions, is rather a bad cook. During the Thorpe trial I remember being touched by reports that Mr Freud was bringing delicacies into the cells below the Old Bailey, so that his friend could be well nourished during the ordeal. But, by the last day of the trial, Mr Thorpe's stomach was so gravely upset that he had to be lodg- ed in the prison hospital for two nights.

At any rate, Christmas is over now and we must prepare for New Year's Day, when we celebrate the Circumcision of Our Lord. For some reason, the Sunday Times Magazine does not recommend the aboli- tion of this feast, less important in the Christian calendar and equally marked by excessive consumption. Perhaps Mr Freud has some Circumcision recipes for us. If so, I think we should be told.