In Praise of Modern Britain

Brian Viner extols the virtues of the modern Christmas bash

Brian Viner enjoys the modern Christmas bash

EVERY other year, usually on the Saturday before Christmas, my wife and I throw a big bash for our friends and neighbours. And each time, I can’t help thinking back to the annual Christmas drinks do that my mother and father hosted and reflect on how much better the English have become at giving parties.

I suppose there’s a socio-economic factor. I’m better off than my parents were, and I live in a bigger house, with more room for people to – that dreaded party word – mingle.

But it’s not just that. In 1975, which seems to be the year my memory twangs back to whenever I think about my childhood, Christmas parties for grown-ups were desultory affairs.

At least at teenage gatherings there might be some snogging, and afterwards a few empty Party Sevens in the kitchen and cheese-and-onion crisps ground into the lounge carpet, to signify that we’d all had fun. We had lounges in those days, by the way, not living-rooms. It’s funny how even the language has changed.

But my parents’ drinks shindigs for the neighbours on Boxing Day morning? Yikes. Salted peanuts, cheese-and-pineapple on sticks, the men drinking flat Tetley’s beer, the women sipping Liebfraumilch. Nobody reached for the half-full bottle of advocaat. Did every middleclass 1970s household have one on the sideboard? Was it enshrined in law? Maybe 1970s pessimists had one that was half empty.

Look at the drinks choices now: the infinite varieties of booze on the supermarket shelves; discount wine warehouses and home deliveries.

There has been a nibbles revolution. Words like antipasti, crudité and canapé, which 45 years ago might have been taken for continental film directors or footballers, have become part of the nation’s lexicon. Not that we were entirely unused to foreign words. We had the blessed vol-auvent, though I used to wish we didn’t. The 1970s tasted almost as much of stale mushroom vol-au-vent as they did of overheated spaghetti hoops.

Consider, too, how much easier it has become to invite people to parties. Where we had to pick up the phone over and over, or post letters, now we have e-mail, text-messaging, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram. And it’s easier to accept. Not even the poshest dos require an RSVP by post; all you have to do is ping over your electronic response.

Given all that, it’s hard to understand why there aren’t as many parties as there used to be, especially at this time of year. Could it be that we’re now so connected with our friends, via social media and whatnot, that there are fewer incentives to see them? Or perhaps we are less socially needy now that our homes have all become fun palaces, with 1,000 TV channels, new movies at the press of a button, video games and the internet.

Actually, it depends where you live. We’re in rural north Herefordshire, where I’m happy to say the Christmas party continues to thrive. My townie friends report a definite dearth, but we still have hooleys out here in the sticks, though nearly everyone has to drive or book the one eight-seater taxi between here and the Welsh coast.

Thus, we often have competition on the Saturday before Christmas. Last time, one couple arrived at our house from another party 20 miles away. They weren’t wearing coats, which was odd, as it was positively Arctic out there. But then they explained that they’d thrown their coats on to a pile at the other house, a little too close to a naked flame. You can guess the rest. Mercifully, the conflagration was quickly dealt with, but not before a fair bit of sheepskin had gone up in smoke.

All of which brings me to the candle. Just as parties taste better now, so they are better lit. In the old days, it was lights on, or lights off. A standard lamp was the best you could hope for, for a bit of atmosphere. But, as with nibbles, so there has also been a candle revolution. They even come Christmas-scented now.

Tea-lights, in particular, have transformed the winter party, bringing flickering magic to the drabbest room. And if you have tea-lights, so must you have tea-light holders. We seem to have acquired enough to sink a battleship, including some colourful old food tins punched with myriad tiny holes which my wife bought in Marrakech, probably for no more than 250 times the cost of production.

We did have candles in the 1970s, of course. But don’t get too nostalgic. Back then they weren’t for parties; we saved them for power-cuts.

“The 1970s tasted almost as much of stale vol-au-vent as they did of spaghetti hoops”