Why are people so self-righteous at Christmas?
I’ve got to stop putting “wellness influencer” in inverted commas. These are real people; we have to accept that they have influence. Wellness is, incontrovertibly, a real thing, since “health” is a bit too neutral to be illness’s opposite. So, anyway, a wellness influencer has posted on TikTok the number of alcoholic drinks you have to down before you’ll gain 1lb (450g) in weight. I know for an absolute fact that this isn’t how the human body works. The calories-in-caloriesout mechanical understanding, where all calories have a like effect and every body is the same, has been debunked from every which way. Even if we were to agree that 37.5 flutes of prosecco should add 1lb of body weight, uniformly, to any drinker, we’d know immediately that circumstances would move the dial. What if you drank them all in one go? You could make yourself so ill that you actually lost weight.
The list was a kind of homage to the great mysteries of alcohol: how on earth is lager more calorific than Guinness? Whose bright idea was the strawberry and lime Rekorderlig, a Swedish cider that packs more energy in nine bottles than Corona can in 25? But the list also joined the canon of “self-hate for the annual self-indulgence” that I’m not sure is any more real than Santa.
If public calorie announcements have their own specific message – the establishment of a set of rules, with numbers attached, because how can you police others’ behaviour if the law isn’t laid down in advance? – it is marginally less ridiculous than the companion advice of how to avoid a hangover this party season. I’ve read all of these, in new and old media, since time began, partly so you don’t have to, partly because they have the shape of an ancient riddle. The tips, whether it’s “Alternate every drink with a glass of water” or “Never drink more than four units in one go” always boil down to: “Don’t get drunk.” You can avoid this consequence of drunkenness, in other words, by not really drinking. Again, the intention is not to change behaviour but to demarcate the aberrant in advance; otherwise, where’s the satisfaction in judging it?
This is the first year I’ve seen a Christmas card that says “Don’t eat too much, you greedy fuck – you know what you’re like”, but that Statler and Waldorf spirit that greets the oncoming carnival with a universalised “Why do we do this to ourselves?” is as Christmassy as Die Hard. It strikes me as a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon habit, projecting overindulgence on to others, then deploring it, under the guise of helpful calorie info-graphs, jocular cards and public service mincepie comparisons. I’m not immersed enough in any other European culture to know whether they’re sending each other cards calling each other greedy; I just have this hunch they don’t.
There’s a puritanical top note, which may or may not be related to all the Christian imagery suddenly everywhere. “Ah, Christianity”, this broadly atheist nation sighs, when its high streets are full of illumined angels. “What does that remind me of? Isn’t it meant to be more about restraint and humility than hedonism and excess?” It sets off a load of hand-wringing and long, hard looks in the mirror. Fashions change, but the message doesn’t; the 00s version of that alcohol chart was an exploration of which one messed most with your wellbeing, Christmas cake or panettone? New information wasn’t really the point: most people would be able to guess that the fluffy, light Italian cake was fluffier and lighter than the brick-like British one. It was more of a seasonal warning: that thing you’re about to enjoy? Don’t enjoy it too much. Fun has consequences. Which, sure, sometimes it does. But may I remind the moral majority of another fundamental principle: in the middle of the fun, rubbing anyone’s nose in your hypothetical consequences is actually a bit rude.
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist
Every year comes the seasonal warning: that thing you're about to enjoy? Don't enjoy it too much