The Queen’s Speech & A British Christmas

Blogging on Christmas Day? With the children entertaining themselves with
loads of gifts and visiting cousins, I thought it would be fun to share what
it’s like to have Christmas in Britain. That’s especially after a good friend
sent best wishes via email along with the joke, "Do you have Christmas in
Britain." He actually asked is that once several years ago! Yes, we do. And it’s
pretty similar to Christmas in the United States, expect for a few things.

Some caveats here. It’s been about 17 or 18 years since I last had a
Christmas in the United States, so how I remember things may have changed. In
addition, my Christmas experiences in Britain could certainly alter from others.
Britain is a big, multi-cultural society. What’s "traditional" can vary. Still,
I think there are some common points that many will agree with.

About two weeks ago, we went to one of the biggest differences between the US
and Britain, a Christmas
pantomime (nothing to do with miming!). Maybe we have pantomimes in the
United States. If so, they never made it into my awareness. These are annual
Christmas plays held throughout the country, in all the various cities.

The one we saw was in Salisbury, a twist on Sleeping Beauty. Pantomimes all
have features that are second nature to the Brits but remain a mystery to me
despite my years here. For some reason, they all have a male actor dressed as a
female nurse or nanny. There’s always some point where that character will say
loudly something like "Oh no you aren’t" or "Oh no it isn’t," which the audience
responds to by yelling "Oh yes you are" or "Oh yes it is." Wikipedia
has a good rundown on some
of this.

The best I can describe the situation is how for an American, you know that a
baseball game will start with the national anthem and that there will be the
seventh inning stretch. These things just seem natural to Americans at a game.
You’ve encountered them from birth. For non-Americans, they seem a mystery of
coordination and group participation. So also is the British pantomime
experience. But despite not being second nature, it’s still quite fun.

The run-up to Christmas Day involves the big question of what song will be
the Christmas number one. Again in the US, I never recall anyone caring what
song was number one at Christmas. In the UK, it can be a betting activity. The
songs are usually inane, and worse, may end up being a song you’ll hear for
years and years in stores and on Christmas best hit albums.

"I wish it could be Christmas every day-ayyyy, blah blah blabby blah…" is
either the name of a song by Slade or just the chorus. I don’t really care. All
I know is I’ve heard the song for years, every Christmas, and it has to be the
low point of the British Christmas experience. Never hearing it again would be a
Christmas miracle. If you can’t experience this misery first hand, go rent Love
Actually, which does a great parody of these songs.

(Added: thanks to YouTube, you can experience the misery of Slade’s Merry Christmas Everybody first hand):

Need to know more? Wikipedia, once again, has information
here (and yes,
it
was Slade, that was the name of the song, but it didn’t formally make it to
number one). Amazing how every Google search on a topic of interest leads you to
Wikipedia. Must be an example of how "spammers and commercial interests" mean
Google "produces nothing but spam and useless crap," of so
says Wikipedia’s
founder Jimmy Wales this week, as he plans a human powered search engine to take
on Google. All because Wikipedia doesn’t rank tops for "tampa hotels," I gather.
What, one search without Wikipedia being tops means Google sucks? OK, mini rant
over, longer rant when I’m back to work next week.

On Christmas Eve, the kids go to sleep thinking about Christmas gifts the
next day, just as in the US. More traditionally, it was Father Christmas who
arrived to put gifts under the tree (yes, trees, just like in the US). Slowly,
"Santa Claus" is the more US name that’s been creeping in. In our US-UK
household, my wife and I continue to war over what he should be called. She goes
with Father Christmas. I say Santa Claus. The kids roll with either.

We open gifts on Christmas morning, just as I did as a kid in the US, so
another similarity. Christmas dinner comes early for us, around 1pm. A turkey is
the central feature. For the US, I seem to remember it being a Christmas ham
that was the traditional meat. The UK doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, so I guess
they’re not all turkeyed out by the time Christmas comes around.

Christmas dinner also features Christmas crackers (see Wikipedia
entry here;
non-Wikipedia info
here). Picture the tube that paper towels go around all wrapped in Christmas
paper, tied off into bows at either end. Inside the tube is a riddle, a prize
and a hat. You have someone pull your cracker with you, one person taking each
end. It indeed goes crack, as a small bit of gunpowder like for a cap gun goes
off. Whoever gets the biggest part is supposed to get the prize, which is
typically anything like a pair of dice to a keychain.

The hat, made of paper, looks like a crown. Everyone puts these on their
heads, unless they are complete spoil sports. For more fun, there’s Christmas
pudding. You know, like the song many Americans sing about. For me, Christmas
pudding was just a song until I came here. Then it turned out to be a sort of
raisin and other fruit cake, topped by brandy, lit and served when the flames go
out. I’m not a Christmas pudding fan, so I generally pass on it. Traditionally,
there should be a pound coin hidden in the pudding. Someone gets that a
surprise, when it is sliced up. Our family no longer does this because years and
years and years ago, one young member swallowed the coin and had an unexpected
trip to the hospital.

Without a doubt, the strangest event is the Queen’s Speech. Not the
one she makes to Parliament. The one she makes at Christmas to the nation and
the British Commonwealth. This happens at 3pm UK time.

For our house, this is one of those stop everything and gather
around times. I do think that’s the case in many houses, as well. It’s not like
we sit quiet and absorb everything she says. The opposite. Today’s speech
produced commentary on her terrible green outfit, why the camera kept moving as
if she was on a ship and other things. But it’s still sort of a highlight.

The Queen’s speeches over the years are rather predictable — best wishes,
reflecting on the meaning of Christmas and nothing that poignant. She did have
that speech some years ago when she
talked about the "annus
horribilus" because of Charles and Di getting divorced in the same year that
Windsor burning. Most of them aren’t like that, though for an American, her

mentions of 9/11 in 2001 was touching and appreciated. Here’s

info on the first Christmas speech she made; here’s
background from the
Queen’s own web site; here’s the inevitable Wikipedia
link. And
that Queen’s podcasting stuff you’ve been hearing about? Just her speech being
made available for download. You’ll find it
here.

In contrast, Channel 4 has the Alternative Queen’s Speech. Channel 4 is
supposed to be the UK’s alternative channel, serving minorities and
under-represented communities. It largely seems to have forgotten this mandate
because of the better ratings in constant airings of Big Brother episodes.
Still, the Alternative Queen’s Speech is supposed to be, well, an alternative to
the Queen. Sharon Osbourne was one person to have delivered it recently (in
2002). I think it would be nice if they ran it right after The Queen’s speech,
so people weren’t having to choose between them. But both are probably repeated.

Television is a big deal over Christmas. Tons of big movies will air, as well
the traditional war movies, as I’ve
written about. Then some old
UK comedy series will have a Christmas special. It used to be
Only Fools And Horses,
which is a great series, with the Christmas specials even better. This year,
it’s The Vicar of Dibley.
If you like films like Four Weddings & A Funeral and Love Actually, go find The
Vicar Of Dibley on DVD. You’ll enjoy it. Richard Curtis, behind both of those
films, created the TV series.

Tomorrow, the newspapers will tell us how the shows did. They’ll do this by
calling the power companies and reporting how much of an electricity spike there
is after the show (seriously, see this BBC

article about it). If I recall right, what happens is that after a show
ends, if lots of people are watching it, they run out at the end of the show and
have a cup of tea. Flipping the electric kettles on makes a spike. The bigger
the spike, the better the show Remember, the main TV channels don’t have
commercials. So you run out at the end of them, all at once!

Finally, people in the UK tend to say Happy Christmas more than Merry
Christmas. It really throws me off, despite my time here. Happy New Year, Happy
Thanksgiving, Happy Birthday — but Happy Christmas? It just sounds weird. But a
merry happy Christmas to you all, wherever you are!