Mistletoe and Wine…Not this Year!

How you thought how unconsciously we hear the incitements to drink during the season to be merry?

Christmas with Red Wine Image by Author An empty bottle — a hollow experience.

Cliff Richard’s famous song started as a political rant (not by him) but he asked to rewrite the lyrics to echo the sentiments of the season. He clearly did not foresee the rash of crass t-shirts and mugs the lyrics would spawn. But it is true that Christmas should be:

A time for giving, a time for getting,
A time for forgiving and for forgetting.
Christmas is love, Christmas is peace,
A time for hating and fighting to cease.

Christmas time, Mistletoe and Wine
Children singing Christian rhyme
With logs on the fire and gifts on the tree
A time to rejoice in the good that we see

From Cliff Richard’s famous song: Mistletoe and Wine

How many times have we heard this or even sung it in a drunken daze?

But it is as if wine is the only thing that can raise our spirits to the occasion of Christmas. Having never had a Boxing Day hangover, despite a quite spectacular drinking career, I am looking forward to a completely sober Christmas.

I wrote yesterday that sobriety brings in its wake a joyfulness and clarity that harks back to childhood, when Christmas was indeed a joyful time, cheerful and not needing spirits to raise our mood. An innocence, a…