Crowded trains and family meals: The unexpected Christmas festivities we’ll miss in 2020

Christmas is a time of tradition and sentiment: rites of passage that we undertake every December because it’s how we’ve always done it. Foods we eat, people we visit, and stockings we hang on the fireplace even though they haven’t been fit for purpose since 1998.

This year, as with all of 2020, Christmas is happening in unprecedented times. The new normal means that the government has had to give us permission to see our relatives for one day only - and none at all if you’re in tier 4 - a situation that would have been unthinkable just 12 months ago.

The continued presence of the virus, insistence on social distancing, and unprecedented disruption to normal life does mean the festive season won’t be as it once was.

After all, it’s hard to recreate a cringe-inducing work Christmas party when many people haven’t been to an office for months, to crowd into a suburban pub with people you haven’t seen since school, or to rush down Oxford Street on Christmas Eve when living through a pandemic.

While being grateful for the allowances we will get, The Independent has rounded up the elements of Christmas we will miss, and can’t wait to recreate in 2021.

It’s no secret among my friends that I am not the biggest fan of Christmas. I don’t celebrate it, my family does not get on well enough to all get together, and I think mince pies are hideously overrated. But that’s not to say there aren’t parts of the festive season I enjoy, like parties. The annual work Christmas party is an idiosyncratic affair, one that I will sorely miss this year. Yes, some companies might try to recreate it over Zoom but we all know it won’t be the same.

There’s truly nothing like it: a room full of people who probably don’t know each other that well, suddenly thrust together with large supplies of alcohol for an enforced period of small talk. Something is bound to go wrong, which is why it often does. Come 11pm and colleagues will be snogging in one corner and photocopying body parts in the other. The next day is almost as exciting with the joyous post-party debrief, when everyone begrudgingly comes into the office armed with a hash-brown-based breakfast, united by a hangover, with various rumours to dissect from the night before. Some might not have slept, others have spent the last few hours thinking about ways to regain a modicum of professionalism. One thing, though, is certain. After the work Christmas party, you will never look at some of your colleagues the same way again.

All 12 members of my immediate family are used to spending Christmas up close and personal. Every 25 December siblings, nieces, grandparents and in-laws all descend upon my parents’ house, which has in the preceding weeks been transformed into a veritable Santa’s grotto. Come lunchtime we crowd lopsidedly around two tables that have been lovingly unified by a patchwork of festive tablecloths and grab every fold-up chair, piano stool and kitchen chair we can lay our hands on, as we sit shoulder-to-shoulder waiting for the main event.

Dinner is a socialising soiree of buffet-style slices of roast turkey, shared bowls of buttery carrots and pick-your-own Yorkshire puds designed to soak up the gravy pools. But, of course, this Christmas is going to look a lot different. The crowded anarchy of the festive season is not something we’ll be looking to recreate. What is typically a hallmark of Christmas now poses a very serious risk for virus transmission and, while I’d love nothing more than to pass plates of food to my loved ones, brawl with my brother over the last pig in blanket, or pour my 83-year-old nan another glass of Baileys, such festive traditions will remain out of the equation – for this year at least.

It’s not really Christmas in my book until you’ve boarded the 18.30 train out of Kings Cross on the Friday before the big day. Having handed over more than the cost of all your presents for a ticket, you are obviously still not entitled to a seat or any luggage space. Normally such travel nightmares would be frustrating but not tonight, because the bonhomie of Christmas is bigger than an extortionately-priced KitKat from the trolley or ominous toilet smells.

You allow yourself to enjoy uninvited conversation with strangers, the radiators on full blast, and the obligatory drunk person dropping station concourse Cornish pasty crumbs in your lap. Hey, you might even share a M&S gin in a tin with a neighbour. ‘Tis the season of goodwill. But, of course, in these exceptional times, not only is the idea of a sardine-like train enough to induce a sweat but it's safe to assume many will opt for alternative transport or not go home at all.

Much like the confusing appeal of a packed nightclub dancefloor, the Christmas train journey is enjoyable in spite of its objective faults. Busy, stressful, hot (always so hot?) It is a collective endurance test with the promise of what lies ahead. This urban exodus to the suburbs of Britain is our gateway to turkey, presents, a Brexit-related fight, and the big tin of Quality Street that only your parents can afford. A very merry Christmas indeed.

The Christmas Eve pub crawl is a tale as old as time. Carols From King’s hasn’t even dropped yet, but across the land, folks are already prepping for a night they’re unlikely to remember that’s guaranteed to take the shine off the Christmas banquet.

As the years go by, the hangovers become harder to shake off, so I like to start early and finish early. Ideally, I’m in the pub for 5pm. At this stage of the evening, you might be lucky enough to score a table and chairs. Within a few hours, none of this will matter, having discovered that the wildly inappropriate man from up the road makes an ideal perching point. Scandalous (but consensual) behaviour is actively encouraged. Everyone’s hyped and boozed and it would be remiss – nay, negligent – not to take love towards your fellow man to its natural conclusion.

This is also a time of year for maximalist dressing. Loud, garish and covered in glitter – I like my Christmases how I like my women. Attempts at tasteful dressing or minimalism warrant scorn. The soundtrack should be trashy Christmas songs past and present. Collective singing can be a stirring, joyful experience. Is it even Christmas unless you’re pressed up against a stranger, gazing deep into each other's eyes, screeching out the final chorus of “Fairytale of New York”?

If you make a fool of yourself, no matter – it’s simply time to move on to the next pub. This year, social distancing and the requirement to eat “a substantial meal” fly in the face of all we hold dear. Is singing even allowed? I’m already counting down to 2021.