Just a week ago Boris Johnson announced that it would be “inhumane to cancel Christmas.” Yet days later that’s exactly what was advised, with many places including London under tier 4 restrictions. With no households being able to meet, this will drastically change the experience for everybody.
Christmas is a time when different generations come together to huddle around a crowded table to eat: a time when laughter, carol singing and a stolen kiss under the mistletoe is all considered tradition. ‘The more the merrier’ feels like something from a bygone era when we didn’t need to think twice before sealing the envelope to granny’s card with a lick and a promise. In my memories those festivities we took for granted taste basted in the flavours of our interactions. I’m old enough to realise that it’s not the presents, but the gathering of family and friends that creates that memorable ‘Christmas magic’ we all know and love.
So with all this in mind, what will Christmas 2020 look like? I teamed up with animator Joel Loh to try and capture just some of that complex idea in one picture – which Joel created above.
It was hard to plan it without remembering that more than 50,000 people have died with coronavirus in the UK. This for many sadly means there will be an empty chair at the table this Christmas, and with Boris urging us to scale back on our plans, the traditional gathering gets even smaller.
That’s why you will see just two adults and a child in the image. The child unwraps a hand sanitiser for Christmas, over-emphasising the mother’s urge to protect. Boris is a prominent figure at the table, symbolising how intrusive the presence of his daily briefings has become. On the walls feature something we yearn for from the past: two beautiful one-line drawings of proper physical contact.
On the back of the mother’s wheelchair are the chilling words ‘do not resuscitate,’ (DNR) which acknowledges the shocking reports that found unlawful DNR orders had been imposed on people with disabilities without consultation during the pandemic. This was a chilling reminder that although we have been urged again and again to be responsible in order to protect the vulnerable, in fact our equal right to access quality healthcare is constantly undermined.
As the small family try to carry on as normal for Christmas dinner, the elephant in the room is very much COVID-19. The dad sports his ‘anti-vaxer’ t-shirt with pride, representing then fact that for all the state’s attempts to get us to act as one, nobody feels certain about much at all. The ‘T.B.C’ is deliberately cryptic – and the fact that these thought bubbles look like the virus adds to the sense of uncertainly about everything.
Yes this is a pretty bleak and sterile image of Christmas 2020. But it does not mean the other more magical one does not exist. Maybe it’s that the ‘magic’ of Christmas is hard to illustrate. So no matter how strange or how small your Christmas might be, let that wondeful but intangible magic of Zooming and other mysterious new interactions fill your homes and hearts.
From all at Rising East we wish you a Merry Little Christmas and in the famous words of Boris, “Keep it small, keep it short and keep it local.”
By Michelle Harris and Joel Loh
