As a much anticipated five day festive pass was scaled back this weekend, the promise of a respite from the trials of 2020, have left people scrambling to keep Christmas feeling, if not a lot like it, then something just a little bit like the December 25 they’re used to.
Easing restrictions for the holidays has been a focus of public, media and government attention since the last days of summer and the chance to salvage something special from this unspeakably grim year felt, understandably, breathtaking. Yet the promise of a period to celebrate with loved ones has now been reduced to just a day and, for people in the strictest Tier 4 areas, cancelled altogether.
But what of those who have been doing this all year? Women whose holy days have already passed by; dates imbued with religious and cultural significance that went quietly unnoticed, marked out not by the usual excesses but by simpler, pared-down ways of making celebration days feel special in lockdown?
For Muslim, Hindu, Sikh and Jewish women, festivals such as Eid, Diwali, Passover and Jewish New Year were as vastly different, in 2020, as a Christmas without family, a tree and gifts would be to everyone who is hastily and disappointedly rearranging their Yuletide plans.
Yet, in celebrating a religious holiday without the freedom to be with loved ones for even one day, stripping away the ‘extras’ turned out to be a chance to remember why we were doing it at all; it, perhaps surprisingly, created some of the most memorable unmemorable days of the year.
In March, when lockdown began, my Jewish family was preparing for Passover, a festival remembered for 10 biblical plagues, the irony of which was not lost as we staved off a modern day plague. It is a holiday defined by its ceremonial feast, a big, shared meal, made of recipes, traditions and stories passed down through generations. We had to think quick. How could one of the most sociable, meaningful nights in our calendar retain its significance if we were eating in five different zoom tiles and dad was buffering? But, because it mattered, because for centuries people have found ways to celebrate days like this in times of greater adversity than ours, its significance was not just felt, in many ways it was heightened.
For Noreen, an academic, author and mother-of-two in her forties, July marked her first Eid without her own mother. Her family were among one million people in northern England banned from indoor gatherings just three hours before the festival began. “We had no time to prepare, emotionally or practically, for a very different celebration,” she says. “There’d normally be dozens of us visiting one another’s homes, my husband would go to the mosque and visit his mum for a traditional Pakistani breakfast of kheer (sweet vermicelli pudding.) Yet in some ways lockdown turned out to be a blessing.
“I missed getting together with my siblings, sharing food, but I liked the simplicity and serenity of the occasion - cooking something special for immediate relatives and not having to stress or fuss unnecessarily over extended family. Like Christmas, we usually spend so much time and effort agonising over the perfect menu and table setting, preparing days in advance. It turns out it wasn’t the food we craved at all but the loved ones we so wanted to share it with.”
Pallavi, a 28-year-old doctor living in London’s Docklands, agrees. She would normally spend Diwali, the festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Jains and Sikhs each autumn, in her parents’ home but not this year. She says: “We joined prayer and ate together over zoom. It’s traditional to buy a new outfit but I was in my trackies which would have been unthinkable last year when there were 30 or 40 of us watching fireworks in a house together.
“But it was different to the normal lockdown Saturday. I made extra effort to follow traditions, cooking, lighting candles around my flat and choosing flowers for ritual prayer. Maybe the religious part of Diwali gets lost in the food and dressing up and fireworks but this year, because of lockdown and generally focussing on being grateful, there was something special about having more time to reflect.”
By the time Jewish New Year came around in September, Manchester, where I live, was in Tier 3. Like Pallavi, I didn’t need to find the perfect outfit for synagogue which has previously mattered too much and far more to me than following a service. I spent it in jeans and no make-up. I delivered plates of ceremonial foods to each of my parents (pomegranate, apple, honey, sweet braided bread) then walked by the river with my husband and kids, gave them an Aldi chocolate tear ’n’ share loaf to snack on which, for them, was peak celebration, and fulfilled a centuries old tradition of emptying our pockets to cast our sins into the sun-streaked water - something I have never otherwise been inclined to find the time for. I may never do it again but I suspect I will never forget it.
When the eight-day festival of Chanukah came to an end last week , my family and I were not together as many of those celebrating Christmas will be in a few days time. But we lit candles over zoom, nosied at who was having what for dinner and opened the presents we’d ordered to each other’s doorsteps. A lot like Christmas, there would normally have been a dozen of us loudly eating, shouting and leaving a trail of wrapping paper across my home. I did, absolutely, miss that - and getting your head around a heavily pared-down Christmas when, for many, the shopping is already done and the excitement had already built, will feel understandably crushing. But I also danced round the lounge to Little Mix with my kids and felt a connection with the people I love - even if it was over a laptop screen. We took the time to make that happen, to mark it out as different. In a year like this one, whatever the day is, that’s a lot to be grateful for.