This will be an introspective Christmas for many. It will certainly be rather different for all.  So many, in various states of isolation brought on by the present world health crisis, will muse on their own Christmases past, present and future. Like Dickens’ immortal tale we shall be visited by the ghosts of those three spirits of Christmas.

One will remember that the first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to the Christmas scenes of his boyhood, reminding him of a time when he was more innocent but also where he makes his first mistakes including the ending of his engagement to his fiancée Belle.

The ghost of my Christmas past brings on a rather mixed bag of memories. Joyously, I will be reminded of happy Christmases spent with my grandparents in Milan where the tree was decorated with lights in the shape of little houses, cottages and chapels, where there was a lovely animated crib in the parish church of San Camillo, where presents, especially from my aunt were truly special like that clockwork excavator from ‘Western Zone’ Germany

and where lunches were graced with panettone and panforte.

The English Christmases were somewhat less enjoyable. I wonder why? Perhaps it was because my mum really wished she was back in Milan celebrating an Italian-style Christmas and not one with that cheapest of meat for Italy, turkey, and that stodgy pudding. Perhaps that’s why she was more often than not, in an irritable mood, especially on one occasion when my brother secretly opened his presents before the appointed time.

One will remember that the second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to a jolly market with people buying food for their Christmas dinner. Everyone is in a happy mood no matter how poor they may be. My second spirit of Christmas first showed himself himself when I married Sandra. Suddenly so many things changed for the better, even though we were so often quite poor, and Christmas became a truly joyous occasion with visits to Sandra’s Italian parents in north London and a lunch supervised to exquisite perfection by her Florentine father. Every Christmas with Sandra has been a joy and our rituals of decorating the house, making the nativity crib, going to Midnight Mass at London’s, Saint Etheldreda’s

 or Lucca’s chiesa dell’Angelo,

adorning the Christmas tree with lights and baubles and giving presents to each other with the names of our cats has followed a reassuringly set pattern.

For only four Christmases, including, unfortunately, the one this year, in our forty-three years of marriage years of marriage have we been apart. One of them was when I spent it Greenwich hospital with an embolism and the other this year – well we all know the reason why so many people will not be spending their Christmases this year with their families. (Incidentally it’s a slightly cold comfort to know that at least two of my friends from Lucca are marooned like Sandra in London. And clearly they are missing their lovely city badly).

The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to come, shows Scrooge a Christmas Day in the future and reveals scenes involving the death of a disliked man whose funeral is attended by local businessmen only on condition that lunch is provided. That disliked man is, of course, Scrooge himself.

What will the third spirit, the ghost of Christmas future, bring for all of us? Who knows? I suspect, however, that it will not start brilliantly for many unless the world changes its attitudes on many things – in particular on money….. It will start even less well for the UK thanks to the will of a slim majority of persons who voted to cut the continent off from their thoughts in the mistaken belief of regaining their sovereignty.

In this respect it is pleasantly ironic that the first group of people offering food and help to the beleaguered truck drivers blocked on the roads to Dover were the Sikh community – immigrants to the United Kingdom.  All praise to them for showing the true spirit of Christmas. They stand for the changed Scrooge when he is shown a neglected grave, with a tombstone bearing his name. Breaking down and sobbing, Scrooge pledges to change his ways. The first thing he does is to order a goose for his poor exploited employee Bob Cratchit. As the carol says:  “They go and collect the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.”

And, as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless Us, Every One!”