Column: Finding some Christmas spirit in a bleak COVID midwinter

It’s been a year of lockdown hokey-cokey - in, out, shake it all about - and a scunnering soundtrack of plans being ripped up and abandoned.

It’s been enough to make even Ebenezer Scrooge utter the words “ach it’s a sair fecht.”

You know it’s bad when even commercial radio DJs dial down the ho-ho-ho fake jollity which comes with every play of Wizzard’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day.

The festive spirit? Yup, it’s out there. Somewhere.

Interesting to see the shop windows of all the major retailers have quietly removed all the sparkly party frocks and clobber for nights out, and replaced them with chunky coats, scarves and boots.

They’re probably missing a trick by not filling the windows with half price onesies. Let’s be honest - that’s about as dressed up as most of us are going to get this Christmas.

The festive season may not have been cancelled, but it’s buried under those ever confusing COVID restrictions.

I lost interest when Jason Leitch was trying to explain it was okay to wrap presents, because COVID doesn’t like rough surfaces, but he was less comfy with us using tinfoil on the turkey - or maybe it was the other way round? I kinda zoned out before he got to the advice on how to socially distance pulling a cracker …

Our family gathering has been scaled back and we’ve banned my mum from singing. Nothing to do with COVID regulations, we just fancied a wee change from the Perry Como Christmas song book.

Then there’s the issue of what to give in the way of gifts.

The lights are on across every High Street and town centre, but there are few people in.

The decorations may still add some much needed sparkle, but without the crowds, the buskers, the choirs singing carols, the Christmas markets, and shops packed with customers being served by staff members in festive outfits, it all feels incredibly flat.

Maybe this year, of all years, our gift to each other should be kindness - and a promise to reconnect in 2021 whether that’s a coffee, a night on the town or a weekend away.

It isn’t healthy to be constrained by your own four walls, propping each other up.

So, next year, we need to wrap up, get up and explore - and do it in the company of the people we’ve missed so much these past nine months.

We may live in a digital world, but that cannot become the sum of our existence. Squinting at a laptop screen for a Zoom catch up is simply no substitute for stepping into someone’s home and soaking in the warmth of their welcome, and the sound of their laughter.

The day that happens - and it will - will also be the day that, never again, will a conversation start with the words “mate, your own mute.”

Our columns are a platform for writers to express their opinions. They do not necessarily represent the views of The Fife Free Press.