Let’s make best of leaner Santa

Doing anything nice for Christmas? We made our plans this week. Not the usual ‘Whose turn is it to buy the crackers?’ and ‘I’ll bring the t r i f l e’ c h at , obviously. That would be far too normal for the year we’ve had.

My brother was last seen rubbing his hands and muttering something about a case of Stella Artois and a Playstation. Mum and dad are contemplating their first Christmas dinner as a couple in more than half a century and the aunties are laying down the vegetable peeler, stepping away from the sink and looking forward to nothing more demanding than an uninterrupted hour of Emmerdale.

Me? I’m going to wear my pyjamas all day, eat at least one giant Toblerone and probably watch G r e g o r y ’s Girl again, possibly in my bed.

Admit it, it sounds alright.

And while our fragmented family Christmas is unlikely to be featuring on the John Lewis ad agency whiteboard any time soon, I don’t imagine we’ll be the only ones deciding to do things a little more low-key for once.

The way things are looking it would be an act of folly or bloody-minded optimism to plan anything more elaborate at this stage.

On Thursday, one of our leading public health experts warned far greater progress would have to be made in tackling Covid-19 if people wanted to meet friends and family this festive season.

Professor Linda Bauld told BBC Good Morning Scotland that numbers were not dropping fast enough and it was difficult to picture the country in a place where people might be free to mix with other households indoors by late December.

She was speaking after deaths linked to coronavirus in Scotland reached a six-month high on Wednesday – 64 in the preceding 24 hours, with another 1,261 positive tests recorded.

“If we see these numbers now, they are baked into the system and it means that they wi l l follow through to ICU admissions and sadly deaths a number of weeks from now,” she said.

The following day Angus, Fife and Perth and Kinross joined Dundee in Tier 3 restriction status, meaning all of us are now grappling with lockdown-lite limits on travel, work and socialising in the hope they help turn back the rising tide of infections.

We were warned a second wave was all but inevitable as the cold weather forced us and our germs inside, but it’s still a dull thud to realise we’re right back in the thick of it and that those NHS workers we all clapped for back in the summer are facing a winter we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemies.

No one’s dashing to the doorsteps now the mercury’s dropped and the rainbows in the windows are being replaced with Santa Stop Here signs. We’re all a bit scunnered, wondering what the rules are and whether they really apply to us, but spare a thought for the folk on the frontline if you’re tempted to throw caution and science to the wind and go ahead with that festive blowout anyway.

It’s not like we don’t have cause to dream that 2021 will bring more cheer.

Monday’s announcement that trials of a Pfizer Covid19 vaccine had found it to be 90% effective at preventing infection was heralded as a turning point in the fight against the pandemic, raising hopes a jab might be available early next year.

Closer to home, scientists at the Ja m e s Hu t t o n Institute at Invergowrie revealed they were working with firms in Fife and Dundee to create personal protective equipment that is not only reusable and

recyclable but made from material that can actively kill the virus.

It’s another potentially game -chang ing breakthrough and a reason to believe this threat that’s upended all of our lives will be defeated and we’ ll be able to return to some semblance of normal in the not too distant future.

Until then, there’s no getting away from the fact that the best solution anyone has come up with for protecting ourselves and the people we love is still the dull but do-able public health advice to wash our hands, wear a mask and keep our distance.

And maybe it won’t be the worst thing if some of us hit the pause button on the extravagance and give thanks for smaller mercies this Christmas.

The festivities are going to be very different for a lot of families, and not out of choice. T he ones with empty places at the table, the ones whose breadwinners are out of work, the ones whose safety nets have all worn through.

The T russell Trust reported its foodbanks handed out a record 1.2 million emergency parcels in the six months to September this week. More than 470,000 went to children as demand rose by 47% due to the pandemic and those figures do not include the number of people helped by other community organisations, independent foodbanks and local authorities.

The charity fears demand will surge over the winter as redundancies rise, putting more pressure on services. Maybe a donation to your local foodbank would be more in keeping with the season this year than busting a gut on goose fat and all the trimmings.

NEW TIMES: Many family gatherings will be taking place online this Christmas, main picture; while, top and above, the tough economics brought on by the pandemic may remind us that spending less and giving more is what the festive season is really about.