It strikes me every year and, every year as I get more cynical, it strikes me with increasing force, that Christmas, this great time of faith, hope and love, is based on deceit.
There is the great deceit that we perpetrate upon our children, that a kindly old man with a red coat will come into their bedrooms when they are asleep and give them something wonderful to remember. I mean, weird or what? I recall being terrified of that old man and my parents having to reasssure me that he wasn't real at all, just a big fat lie.
And there are all the little "white" lies of the social occasions.
"Oh, it's lovely, you shouldn't have!" (It's horrible and I wish you hadn't)
"They're delicious, they really are, but I honestly couldn't manage another thing" (I wouldn't put another of those greasy things in my mouth if you paid me in ingots of solid gold)
"We'd love to pop round but I'm afraid we can't" (Thank heavens)
I don't think I lie as much all year as I lie at Christmas, one way or another. What a lovely family time it is.
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