It’s been a year to forget so let’s make this a Christmas to remember
FIRST they took St Patrick’s Day. Then they took Easter. At least we now know we have a Christmas to look forward to. As we move from Level 5 and the grim days of Lockdown 2 and into the not-great-but-stillbetter environs of Level 3 and a bit, it will be interesting to see how busy the shops are today. Did everyone just go mad and do all their Christmas shopping on Black Friday or were they holding on to their cash to spend locally?
Certainly, the retailers will be hoping it’s the latter and from the country’s economic point of view, we should all be in agreement with them.
Let’s be honest, we all know that we have some grim days ahead of us when we wander into 2021 so this Christmas won’t just be the season to remember – it will also be the season to forget.
We can try to forget the awful year we have all endured. We can try to forget about our fears for our jobs. We can forget, however briefly, that we’re still facing down the barrel of a gun.
There was plenty of apprehension before the Government’s announcement that we would be allowed to have some semblance of a Yuletide.
Many of us assumed that we would be told to stay indoors, wearing sackcloth and ashes and only able to eat those tiny turkeys that have been specially bred for smaller Christmas gatherings.
So, let us all breathe a sigh of relief the shops are reopening, hairdressers and barbers are back in business – as someone who has spent the last few months gradually transforming into a Yeti, I never thought I’d be so desperate to visit my local barber – and, of course, this being Ireland, we’re all delighted we can finally get to meet our mates for a festive pint or three. We’ll even be able to go to restaurants. Oh, the luxury!
It’s amazing how the things we all took for granted have now gathered extra importance in our lives.
The simple act of getting your hair cut or going for a beer or a meal had become little more than fond memories and that’s why it was imperative that the Government eased the restrictions, even if the Grinches in the public health lobby were totally opposed. This lockdown has been harder for most people than the first one. A report from the CSO yesterday confirmed what we have all witnessed with our own eyes.
According to the study, fewer people were adhering to the rules this time. That’s not surprising when you consider that the same study also points out that loneliness, depression and anxiety had all escalated. We’ve witnessed this mutinous mood over the last few weeks, when every weekend brought new stories of large crowds gathering in public.
I saw it myself on Saturday night when I was walking my dogs. The car park adjacent to the local boozer was filled with people enjoying their takeaway beers.
Were they wrong to congregate in such a fashion? Well, obviously. Should we judge them? Well, I certainly didn’t.
Patience with the lockdown has been fraying for the last few weeks and while I wouldn’t recommend standing in a car park on a cold Saturday night, shivering as you drink your pint, I’m also not a 19-year-old who has been stuck in isolation while watching the four walls closing in.
In fact, the public response to such flagrant rule-breaches has been very different compared to the first lockdown.
Yes, there were still the usual types who rang Liveline to boast they had informed the cops any time they saw crowds of kids gathering. But the scolds will always be with us.
The people I passed didn’t see themselves as law breakers and nor did I. Instead, I could empathise with their simple desire to meet up and briefly pretend that things are normal.
Of course, things aren’t normal – buying a beer in a pub and then drinking it in a car park is hardly the definition of normal – and they won’t be normal for a long time. In fact, I wonder when we will ever get back to normality.
It’s not just young people, either. They have been on the receiving end of some deeply unfair criticism but I know from talking to some of my more, em, mature neighbours that they were also at breaking point. The thoughts of being prevented from seeing their grandkids over the holiday period were unbearable – if we had been forced to stay in Level 5 there would have been a grey revolution and who could blame them?
Perhaps all the positive stories about the imminent arrival of a number of vaccines persuaded people that there was, finally, a chink of light at the end of this interminable tunnel.
Having said that, the fact that a poll over the weekend showed only 70pc of us were prepared to take said vaccine when it becomes available was a reminder that, just like the scolds, the cranks will always be with us.
The rise of the anti-vaxxer movement has been one of the more depressing elements of 2020. In ordinary circumstances, the idea the vaccines were a cunning ruse by Bill Gates to microchip us all would be treated with the laughter and contempt it deserves. But in these challenging times – there’s a new rule in journalism that every piece about Covid has to use the phrase “these challenging times” – more people seem inclined to believe obvious nonsense than ever before.
For the rest of us who aren’t actually mad, we just sucked it up and darkly grumbled into our banana bread. But the Cabinet obviously realised this was an unsustainable position. You can only go to the well of public support so many times and that well was beginning to run dry.
So let us look forward to the next few weeks when we can get back to enjoying our usual annual traditions such as complaining about Fairytale of New York. It won’t be a normal Christmas, but it will be a hell of a lot better than the alternative.
Enjoy it. You deserve it.
If we had been forced to stay in Level 5 there would have been a grey revolution