God bless us, everyone?

*A Secular Essay

Dear Readers,

Thank you for joining me, and thank you for all of the well-wishes after my last post: 'Portrait of an Actress at 25'. I thought it was the usual run-of-the-mill birthday essay, but a lot of you reached out to check in, as apparently it had quite a sad tone. Apologies, that was not my intention.

I cannot promise a straightforward festive wankfest in this post either, but do stay with me.

I wanted to write about the so-called Silly Season and what it means to me. Obviously, the magic of Christmas wore off some years ago (although I still insist on my Mother buying me an Advent Calendar). Perhaps the chocolate penny dropped the year I caught my Father sprinkling flour over his feet by the front door. I stood in the hallway, 4ft tall, all fleshy and cute in my festive pyjamas with one hand clutching an original Jellycat and the other stuck firmly up my nose, watching him. He turned around as I chirped: ‘But Daddy, Santa doesn’t use the front door. He comes down the chimney.’

‘Oh shit, yeah.’ He replied.

That makes my childhood sound quite harsh; I promise it wasn’t all like that. December as a child was all about crappy handmade cards (many of which my Father still has in his bedside table), sticky clementines stabbed with cloves (still don’t like the smell), and The Nativity. Obviously, I always wanted to be Mary, and obviously, I was always a shepherd, angel and/or narrator. I think anyone who played Mary in primary school peaked too soon and probably works in PR or accounting now. Over time, I realised the importance of the Narrator, and felt very smug about playing her year after year. I knew it was because I was the only child who would learn her lines and not get all shy on the day. Rumour has it, before I had even started school, I crawled up onto the stage during my Brother’s nativity play ‘just to be with him’. At least, that’s how my Mother tells the story. But I know the truth: aged 2, I couldn’t stand all the attention being on other children, and yearned for the spotlight myself.

Come to think of it, this is the first December that I’m not in a play. Last year, I played identical triples in an Agatha Christie spoof (I wrote about it here), and the year before, I played a coke-sniffing, horndog in Mike Bartlett’s Scandaltown at LAMDA. Pretty much every year of my life has ended with a show, whether it was the Nativity, the local panto or sketch show with my comedy group. So this year, December has looked a little different for me.

This ‘Silly Season’, I completed my self-assessment tax return, suffered through the worst flu I’ve had in years, and worked Black Friday in retail. Not the most festive yuletide, to say the least. The tax stuff was a huge learning curve. Staring at my laptop and crying down the phone to my Father was strangely reminiscent of the MyMaths days, and as frustrating. Writing down my acting earnings on a little Post-it note was not only a quick task, but fucking depressing, but I got into my groove claiming expenses. That haircut? Necessary for the character. Superdrug haul? Vital for a healthy and productive tech day. Crappy self-tape tripod from Amazon? Not worth the £10, but every claimed penny counts. I got some tax returned, which I promptly sent back to HMRC to protect my pension or something? Fuck it, I don’t know. I’m just glad it’s done, so my Dad can stop nagging me about it.

The flu was bad. I’m not yet entitled to sick pay at work (criminal), so I coughed into cashmere and handsanitized performatively in front of the customers. It was Black Friday week, and I didn’t want to leave my comrades mid-battle. One of my symptoms was, apparently, being a bitch. Something about sales makes the average customer even more dim-witted than usual. Despite the mass marketing campaign, red vinyl signs on the doors saying BLACK FRIDAY SALE, and queues down the pavement, I still had people asking me: Is there a sale on? The straw that broke this shopgirl’s back was when explaining for the umpteenth time that our branch does not carry menswear, and no, I cannot change that, I began to gag. I ran from the shop floor, leaving the hordes of angry/verbally violent customers to swarm my defenceless colleagues, and vomited in the singular staff toilet. It was not glamorous, especially when I had to explain this fact to my manager in front of even more customers, their disgusted facial expressions as priceless as the coats in their arms. Officially defeated by Black Friday and my Victorian constitution, I was sent home.

In my feverish malaise, I pondered the true meaning of Christmas. The frantic capitalist frenzies of the sales, the Christmas markets, light displays and endless marketing emails heralding the season overwhelmed me. I was able to book off the 24th and 26th from work, but so many people will be spending the holiday alone, or at work, far from family and far from home. What is merry about that? My TikTok is a nightmare scroll of influencer gift guides (#Ad), videos of mass shootings, and celebrities promoting their blockbuster films and disordered eating. All of this, paired with the strange pressures of the season to be the most gorgeous, most fun, most outgoing and most exuberant girl at the Christmas Drinks you didn’t even want to go, I'm ending this year, as my Father would say, a bit ‘tired and emotional’.

Again, I don’t want to alarm you, dear Readers. I’m just trying to be honest.

So, how did Daisy rediscover the magic of Christmas?

Like most things in life, it got better without me realising. With the crowds of tourists gone, I started to appreciate the beautiful Christmas decorations that illuminate my way to work. One day, I took my break under the branches of a 20ft fir tree adorned with papier-mache partridges and light-up pears. As I called my parents, probably for the fifth time that day, to complain about customers, my feet hurting, or my skin, I noticed how the light-up pears on the tree gently warmed my back.

The festive plans came thick and fast, and though I usually dread such occasions, I found myself applying red lipstick in the reflection of the tube carriage window, feeling rather excited. A birthday party in Bethnal Green, a spontaneous glass of wine after work, and late-night festive shopping. I went to see a pub theatre panto, and had the best time. Written by Meg Coslett and Conor Dumbrell, with original music by Anna Hale, this camp retelling of Cinderella replaced enchanted forests with off-licenses and family-friendly dialogue with penis jokes and Gavin and Stacey quotes. Brooke Bazarian shone in her role as the Prince’s underling, Daniel, and, even in her nerdy boy scout costume, stunned with her vocals in Hale’s song, ‘On the Side’. I sat with my American friends and quickly realised they were not as intrinsically familiar with panto etiquette as we Brits. I enjoyed encouraging them to sing along with drunken enthusiasm, and respond to Buttons’ ‘Hiya gang’ with childlike excitement. It was brilliant to see a group of supremely talented professional actors using the typically empty weeks before Christmas to take a chance on a new script and have fun. And fun it was. I felt myself opening up, embracing the glow.

We hosted a Christmas party at the flat, and I really enjoyed myself. I didn’t worry too much about people spilling drinks or treading mince pies into the carpet. I drank and danced and wore a silly outfit, and nothing bad happened. At my work drinks, I sat with my manager and asked about her life, danced with my new friends and requested the covers band to play Glee songs. I was touched during our Secret Santa exchange when I received my favourite chocolate bar and a Jane Austen escape room game. A colleague, now a friend, knew exactly what I would enjoy.

It’s strange how much we reveal of ourselves without realising, and it’s thrilling to be seen so clearly. This joy is doubled when shared, and although it is not limited to December, somehow the season brings this phenomenon into focus. Whether it’s a new friend noticing how much you love Tony’s Chocolony (the ‘everything’ bar to be specific), or hearing the squeals of joy as your best friend opens the Bakerloo Line socks you got her (she’s a TFL fanatic), Christmas is an opportunity to show how much you know someone, and feel how much somebody knows you. And that’s really lovely.

So, however you find yourselves this holiday, at work, with family, with friends or spending it solo, I hope you find some time to embrace the glow. It is Christmas, after all.

God bless us, everyone.

KTF x