Have yourself a branch-in-bucket Christmas

Worse, I no longer know how to greet people. Am I meant to hug them, shake their hand, or just curtsy from a distance?

Every time I bump into someone, it’s like a duel at the O.K. Corral. We pause, two gunslingers, arms hanging loosely by our sides, ready to go for the handshake, but only once the other party signals their move.

Often we just stand there, for what seems like minutes, both parties twitching slightly, not wanting to breach whatever might be the other’s COVID-19 protocols.

Really, it’s just as easy to stay at home.

Yet even there, behind locked doors, the COVID-19 anxieties press down. Should Santa really be going from home to home in the middle of a pandemic? I note there is no period of quarantine between countries, or even continents. Could Santa prove a superspreader? Does Rudolf’s red nose represent a breakthrough infection? Is Santa’s ho-ho-ho actually a bronchial cough?

I’ll put out the glass of milk for Santa, as always, and the carrots for the reindeer, but am now considering adding a pump pack of hand sanitiser and a box of rapid antigen tests.

After all, up at the North Pole, they may well have a bad Elf problem.

Other problems crowd in. Should you still arrange Christmas cards in a display on the sideboard, even though – courtesy of the overburdened postal service – the supply has now dwindled to two cards, one of which is from the local real estate agent and the other from a couple in Scotland whose precise relationship to us we have long forgotten?

Suddenly, I hear a cry of triumph from the other room. I run in. Jocasta has found the presents. They were hidden in the big Esky, the one we never use. Why wouldn’t they be?

No longer frantic, Jocasta takes time to view my branch-in-a-bucket Christmas tree, saying she thinks it “quite artistic” and “like a sophisticated commentary on the season”.

She smiles.

“That was just what I intended,” I lie.

I decide to put the two Christmas cards on display, and then use my origami skills to make a few baubles, which I inexpertly nail to my festive branch-in-a-bucket.

This wins more unexpected praise from Jocasta, who appears to have lost her mind due to the triumph of locating the presents.

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I download a new Christmas album, set it playing, and hang some old Christmas lights along the front fence. Jocasta is wrapping the presents, humming.

Maybe I’ll risk the shops, after all. I’m double vaxxed, with a third dose soon, and you can’t waste your whole life worrying.

I’ll attend the bookshop on Jocasta’s behalf and see if they have a section called “Really Obscure Literary Fiction”, so we have backup books for the daughters-in-law. Oh, and a case of sparkling shiraz would be handy, for when friends pop in. Plus some more baubles for the tree.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.

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