The cost of living (gawd that phrase is grating on me already) is hitting people so hard it’s finally effecting Christmas.
Good.
As luck would have it, this term has been sodding busy. I’ve barely had time to cook and my nails are bitten down so low my knuckles are throbbing as I type. But it is finally over. And I’ve managed to organize myself enough so that, bar some safeguarding nightmare coming through over email, I shouldn’t have to think about work until the evening of January 2nd. Almost 2 solid weeks.
I nipped in the shop today on the way home having borrowed a car just for this occasion. My previous experience of supermarket shopping in the week leading up to the big C has guided my planning. I didn’t even want much; some bacon, some mature cheddar, some coconut milk for the cereal, a bottle or three of wine and some fresh vegetables to see me through the next few of days where I, no doubt, won’t want to deal with humans.
I’m a cooker in general so my cupboard already has an array of spices, flour, sugar, corn starch, oil, onions, garlic. There’s numerous tins of beans, lentils, tuna and multiple half eaten packets of pasta (wholemeal, spinach and tri-color) and rice (black, red, wild, Basmati). A half-used family pack of sage an onion stuffing from last year is still in date and there’s an unopened tube of Haggis in the fridge. We eat cheese, so there’s half a jar of chutney, a big tub of chunky pickle and 3/4 of a jar of piccalilli that have been purchased in the last couple of weeks. There’s a loaf of sourdough on the side (keeps longer than regular bread and appears to have less processed crap in it). There’s oats, muesli and some sort of crunch thing for cereal and my partner keeps us in a steady stock of eggs from the farm he passes on the way home from work. I even have goose fat.
This is par for the course by this time in December. Yet, every year, I have found the trips to grab the fresh things and the necessities difficult once there’s a 2 at the start of a 2 digit date of December.
Not this year.
In less time than it normally takes me to find a parking space, I’d parked (near the door!) at Sainsburys and made it to the check out. Nothing looks much different at the outset. There’s still whole fridges worth of hams wrapped in plastic. Whole aisles have Christmas POS cards on what used to be a staple protein offering. US style plinky plonky voices sing over the intercom with ‘last minute must haves’ and ‘festive feel-goods’. But something in the atmosphere was different. There were no crowds. The fridges were reasonably stocked but not over flowing like last year. The vegetable aisle seemed fruitful. In fact, the only vegetable baskets you could see the bottom of were the 19p necessities: sprouts, basic potatoes, carrots, onions. The only impulse buy I had allowed myself from the fresh aisle was parsnips and they were out of those (probably because they were 19p, too, and the only seasonable vegetable that was worth the discount). The shelves were full but again, the necessities were the only ones where you had to dig around. I had considered some tinned tomatoes as the store hadn’t even bothered to shelve them, favoring stacking the cases, which were empty down to the floor. But a quick phone call home told me we had 2 cans, and no particular plans to use more. The only impulse buy I’d allowed myself from the shelves was ground coffee and a quick google showed me I could get a local company made version for the same price delivered before I have to go back to work.
Pretty much the only part of the shop that felt like Christmas was the freezer section. The nibbles section was a muddle. There were sausages where the card said cheese bites. I wandered around the unusually calm aisle for inspiration but found none. Every packet I picked up seemed like something I could make out of things I already had in the cupboards. It seems I wasn’t the only one making these calculations. Numerous customers I passed were women, their children sitting on the floor or in a trolley with a device in hand. Elderly couples with hand written lists. Childless couples with baskets and heads in phones. Al had their furrowed brows poured over packets before returning them, their trolleys filled with… just necessities.
The drive home was notable. I live in a selection of flats nestled in the middle of a private housing estate. If you walk around it enough, you can see how it was designed. Christmas just makes the design even more glaringly obvious. A large circular road with branches of closes going off to the outside with detached 4-5 beds and postage stamp gardens; a mini SUV and a saloon live on the driveways, new-ish starter hatchbacks with L plates litter the pavements. Lights adorn the bushes and trees twinkle in the windows. It’s mostly tasteful; there’s only one house covered in plastic reindeer and LED snowmen. If you look inward of the ring road, the pathways are shared. Little side by side doors with a window above and the exact same set up on the rear are a one-bedroom give-away. Looming blocks of flats with only two layers of windows give away the two story studio flats. The “two up two down” of the working class has been replaced with the “one bed/no garden”. Children’s toys and car seats show that this area is no longer the mainstay of the working singletons. Pretty much everything inside the ring road was Christmas-free. No lights on at all, let alone the lights from a decorated tree.
My Christmas is going to be simple this year: I’ve got half a dozen recipes I want to try over the next few weeks from a lentil wellington to home made bread. The tiny kitchenette doesn’t leave much room for exploration during the working week. But two weeks off I can afford to play around a little.
One of the children bought me a candle that’s base is the size of a large slab of chocolate. Optimistically designed for a dining room table, with three wicks. It smells of Christmas. As I pack away the cheese, the bacon, the wine and the coconut milk, my eyes settle on the full cupboards. I am luckier than most, even without the prepaid goose collection.
I plan to take a walk to the butcher early on Christmas eve and take whatever meat is on offer. Even it’s only sausages. Their Facebook page says they definitely will be open. Failing that, I know where I could probably get a ham.
Maybe it’s the smell of Christmas out of the candle, perched on the side of the £19.99 B&M side table I call a desk. Maybe it’s the full cupboards, or the partner sitting scrolling contentedly on the screen near me. Maybe Christmas doesn’t have to be what we have spent 30 years pretending over. Maybe it’s taken the great unwashed a cost-of-living-crisis to figure out what living actually is.
FaerieFalls 