Were there arguments? Undoubtedly. By the time Christmas Eve arrived, it was a dead cert that Great Aunt Mary would prefer BBC Two’s festive celebration from Westminster Cathedral (complete with the puberty-defying nearly-15-year-old Anglesey treble Aled Jones) to Kenny Everett’s reworking of A Christmas Carol on BBC One (louche, anarchic and probably regrettable, with its jokes about a pudding with cystitis and pantomime-style wordplay of the ‘Good golly, Miss Marley?’ variety). And it was 1985, so only 30 per cent of British homes owned a video recorder, making the ‘what to watch’ argument notably fraught in the season of peace and goodwill toward men.
The problem with anticipation is the element of waiting. How long is it since patience was a virtue?
There had been plenty of time to pick your side. The double issue of the Radio Times (price 54p; cover picture the Trotters, Del Boy waving a cigar) had been lying around the drawing room, in the glow of the multicoloured fairy lights, for more than a week. It was the age of single-chance viewing, before video recorders or catch-up or streaming, when a personal device was probably a Walkman, only washing or fish were online, and the TV-minded planned their viewing days in advance. Four decades ago, in that vanished world of looking ahead and waiting, when you were lucky if a favourite film was repeated once a year on Boxing Day and anything called a ‘serial’ demanded six weeks’ commitment, only the disappointment of losing in the family TV battle could match anticipation for sheer intensity of feeling.
Fast-forward to 2024 and is anticipation, like orange-flavoured jelly slices and Advent calendars that shed planet-destroying glitter, a thing of the past? Not anticipation on the grand scale, you understand, but the gentle inner effervescing produced by looking forward to little treats just around the corner: a new novel by a favourite author, the first sharp-tasting apples of autumn, the moment hawthorn blossom studs the hedgerows. In a world of on-demand, 24/7-streaming television, of Amazon Prime and next-day delivery, of last-minute holidays and 20-minute, quick-wash dishwasher cycles, when the main points of politicians’ speeches are published before the speech has happened and all six hours of a drama can be viewed within seconds of the closing credits of the first episode, is anticipation even possible?
It has certainly become a minority sport. The under-tens might continue to await Father Christmas with a breathlessness as old as figgy pudding – and the over-eighties, schooled in patience and routine, accept each day’s Daily Telegraph puzzles without clamouring for a whole week’s offerings in a single sitting. But these are the exceptions. And the rest of us are reassured that we’re right. An instant world needs us to chase after quick gratification with a kind of heedless urgency – to provide the spikes, the likes, the numbers that add up to commercial success. Anticipation can make us happy, pushing the brain to release dopamine, the so-called ‘feel-good hormone’ whose absence is linked to moodiness, apathy, even depression. But why get from anticipation what Instagram delivers in seconds? Life’s unpredictable and anticipation an unreliable guarantor of ultimate satisfaction. Whereas a decent streaming service…
The problem with anticipation is the element of waiting. How long is it since patience was a virtue? For anyone older than the ‘greed is good’ of the 1980s, self-control might be a lodestar. The younger generations have had their outlook moulded by the navel-gazing and therapy-shaped egotism promoted by reality TV and social media. Patience is way too passive, and anticipation just might be a loser’s game. We’ve even enlisted fashionable philosophies to support our cause. Buddhists may not have had the Brora sale in mind when they embraced mindfulness as a path to enlightenment, but if you’re going to live in the moment there are certain things you need now – right? No point in risking your happiness on a future of possibilities when the present offers certainties just a tap away on your phone. Anticipation may be a means of lowering stress, giving us something enjoyable to think about, but surely it’s a cause of stress, too? What if they sell out in my size? And as for anticipation as a way of increasing patience… the lip curls.
Anyone who has read a child’s school report recently will have noticed the giddy ascent of organisation as a life skill. How highly some people value organisation, that great preventative to anticipation. Organise, organise, organise and you can eliminate the element of uncontrol. It’s probably a useful mantra if you’re an 18-year-old with a university offer riding on A-level results, but hardly a philosophy likely to yield the richest life experience. Organise to the nth degree and you shape outcomes within the perimeters of your own imagination. And how limiting this could be.
For families all over the country, this Christmas will probably be TV-argument free. Even the King’s Speech can be watched later, on different channels, different devices, in any room of the house, sitting down, standing up. Some of us will still buy the double issue of the Radio Times, reassured by a sense of continuity, the reliably colourful cover, the sheer thickness that proves the length of the Christmas break. But do we actually open it – let alone fold down page corners or circle the must-sees? Perhaps we buy it to remember rosily a world in which we think we were happier, looking forwards, building castles in the air.
A footnote: in 2007, fashion label Ghost launched a scent called Anticipation. Look online and you can get it next-day delivery – cut price, remaindered.
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