Happily, there is another way forward that does not involve either faking flu, or even compromise. For if we examine the ins and outs of Henriette and Alexandra’s Christmases, we’ll see that the joy of them is that nothing gets left by the wayside. Some years, recounts Henriette, she and her family have had an Austrian Christmas on the 24th, and the Christkindl has come in the evening and put presents under the tree, and then Father Christmas has come that night leaving “very token” stockings to be opened on the morning of the 25th, and then they’ve all enjoyed an English Christmas lunch. “By spreading it out, it takes the pressure off – there’s no longer one, single manic day, and it’s more enjoyable for everybody,” she explains. Similarly, Alexandra and her children break the Russian Orthodox fast for the Western Christmas, having, in effect, two Christmas days.
So, with that in mind, let’s get into a detailed look at your concerns. Firstly, regarding Father Christmas or Santa (the name is a red herring, “children really don’t mind what he’s called as long as he brings presents,” says Henriette) I think perhaps you could ask that the narrative be upheld, however, I think you can also tell your children that Father Christmas only visits children – which is why grownups fill each other’s stockings. Next, church; if it’s important to you, then find an appropriate service nearby (Google will help) take your children and go. You could ask others if they’d like to come – you might well find that they’d be glad to. Then, lunch and supper, to which my solution would be to do both – providing that you can find a means of catering the first without interfering with what else is going on in the kitchen. To that end I reckon you concentrate on the specialness that crackers will communicate (Philip Hooper advises bringing your own) and know that they can accompany pizza or scrambled eggs or smoked salmon blinis just as effectively as they can chaperone turkey and all the trimmings. That particular menu, meanwhile, could – for your family – become a literal moveable feast, which happens on a different date (and sometimes more than once; your children will doubtlessly be given an interpretation on ‘Christmas lunch’ day at school.) For your in-laws’ evening meal sounds incredible – and I imagine that it is something that your children are going to enormously enjoy once they are older and able to sit down for longer, stay up later, and are excited by trying new foods. I expect that they’ll also enjoy and embrace New Year, and Epiphany (which is what I suspect is being celebrated on the 6th January, that flat cake is a Galette des Rois) and I urge you to do the same, and join those traditions up with your own. “There is nothing better than prolonging the magic,” says Alexandra, who has succeeded in making Christmas last literally weeks (“I get an extension on British Twelfth Night and don’t take the tree down until the 19th January, and the Russian Orthodox Kreshenie,” she explains.)
