Yes. A list. My best excuse for writing another list is that it’s Christmassing all over the place here. The truth is that I’m frequently too lazy and sometimes too busy. And it’s Christmas. Which is list time. Madam’s Santa list included Monster High dolls and Peace on Earth. I asked that the telescope belonging to the pub directly across the road from all of our windows have an unfortunate encounter with a drunk pipe-fitter.*
Of course when you move from one place to another, people ask about the differences. Lately, the question is: “Are you finding Irish Christmas so very different from American?”
Short answer: Nope. Long answer follows as Holiday List #6: Ten Things Bing Crosby Could Have Added to “Christmas in Killarney” (had the song actually had much at all to do with a real Irish Christmas).
1. Fairs. Traditional and charming and very Northern European, they’re all over the place in Dublin: little villages of garden-shed chalets selling food and gifts. There’s a lot of Andean knitwear and Angry Birds merchandise (and one just up the street here selling, even more oddly, NYPD/FD sweatshirts), but there’s also local woollen goods, crafts, and hot chestnuts. There are rides, including an ice slide, which, if it were even allowed to happen in the US, would become litigious so fast that the first lawsuit would beat the first slider to the bottom.
2. Absolutely the right attitude about the weather during the holidays. It is cold, frequently windy, and usually a little damp. But where, in the States, people would be grumping loudly about the weather, even while holding tinsel, here it’s different. On a recent morning, as Madam and I walked to school, we passed several people scraping ice off their windshields. None of them had a windshield ice scraper. One had a shoehorn, another a spatula, a third was working away with what looked like a piece of toast. Every single one looked up and smiled. “You look sweet enough to make an ice lolly of this,” one said to Madam. “Building me muscles” from another. Toast lady just giggled. Dubliners are cheerful about winter. In general, the Irish are philosophical about bad weather and genuinely delighted by good. No one is worrying about a white Christmas. Everyone just kinda assumes there won’t be a heatwave. Or a tornado.
3. “Fairy Tale of New York”. A longtime fave of mine. It usually comes through my speakers maybe a half dozen times during the season as I cycle through my holiday music list. Here, I’ve heard it at least four times a day since December 1st: in department stores, through car windows, at the bank, grocery store, and post office. Love the song. But there’s something not quite right (and it definitely makes singing along dodgy) about hearing it while standing between two old ladies holding canes and parcels with kittens on them. “Did he just say “scumbag”, pet?”
4. Food. Yes, I know, more food commentary. I’ll be brief. Here, turkey and ham are mandatory. Like, woe to anyone who suggests a roast or something (God forbid!–gasp) vegetarian. I suspect Christmas dinner here, with its slightly manic overabundance of food, is going to be reminiscent of family Thanksgivings back in the States. Only no one will be lunging across the table, carving knife in hand, to defend the honor of the Eagles or NYSE.
5. There’s a bit more Christ in Christmas. Not all that much, maybe, but enough that you notice. I see a lot of people stopping with loose change and a few pleasant words for the homeless on the street. People who don’t go to church at any other time go on Christmas Eve. There are creches everywhere. Until the 25th and the baby arrives, a lot of the mangers accumulate coins that people toss. It was a little startling the first time I saw it–loose change instead of child.
6. Holiday clothing. It’s everywhere, completely without irony. In Grafton Street shop windows, on the DART, visible through office building windows. Woolly-faced Santa sweaters, Scrooge sweatshirts that say “Bah Humbug” on the front and “Feck Off, Will Ye” on the back, reindeer hats.
7. Santas who look like Santa. No fake beards here. Himself has been known to make a joke or two about naturally red noses on O’Santa. Still, there’s a genuine jollity that is very sweet.
8. Pleasant, polite, patient shoppers. And a complete disregard for personal space. Maybe Ireland isn’t the biggest little island in the world. But it’s pretty sparsely populated. Even in Dublin, whose population density is by far the greatest in the country, there’s plenty of room for everyone. Yet there seems to be a cultural instinct to block aisles and doorways, and to stand so close to the person in front of you in line that a marriage proposal, while not strictly necessary, would be entirely appropriate by the time you reach the check-out. Maybe it comes from living in a cold, damp place. Huddling together for warmth… Sidewalks are the worst, and Christmas has made it the worst worst. Walking in Dublin lately is a constant slalom. In deference to the season, I try to replace my normal, silent street mantra of “Get the **** out of my way!” with “Have a happy Christmas…just please, please have it somewhere else!”
9. Smells. The smells are different. Yes, there’s the pervasive Yankee Candle faux fir smell in a lot of the smelly-candle stores (including, yes, Yankee Candle). And there was the real fir smell on the corners selling trees. But there’s also the incredible smell of the turf bricks that people burn, winter air that’s remarkably clean even in the center of Dublin, morning rain, and sometimes a frying-food smell that is about as much like McDonalds as a real tree is to that Yankee candle.
10. Doctor Who. No, no, this is Big this year. We got to see the season premier in real time. Now we get to watch the Christmas special on Christmas. Which means all festivities must be concluded in time for us to be back in our holiday jammies and in front of the tv, popcorn popped, by airtime. The senior Himself family members who don’t want to watch are only mocking the rest of us a little.
Fa la la la la.
*I also asked O’Santa for a hurley (the stick used in hurling). I’ve been asking for twenty years. I’ve been awfully good. Maybe this is the year…