Subscribe

Six Christmas traditions from the late 20th century to befuddle Gen Z

CHRISTMAS has many fun traditions, but ones from ancient times like the 1980s may confuse youngsters. Here are some of those strange practices explained for the Gen Z reader:

TV magazines

Buying the Radio Times and TV Times for the Christmas listings of the handful of available channels was common in the 80s and 90s, if only to moan about there being nothing worth watching. People would spend hours obsessively circling ‘essential’ shows and programming the VCR. Sadly in those unenlightened times no counselling was provided for the trauma of spending a day inputting times and then discovering the final half-hour of Where Eagles Dare was missing.

Napping

Many of Gen Z feel that naps during the workday aid productivity and creativity. However Christmas naps of the past were more about your body going into emergency shutdown to give your organs the chance to digest huge quantities of potatoes, gravy and sherry. A much-loved tradition was to fall asleep during a Christmas film and wake in a panic asking ‘What’s happened?’ Not an urgent question when watching The Man with the Golden Gun.

Pulling the wishbone (trigger warning)

An ancient tradition when eating a roasted, non-vegan farm bird was for two people to ‘pull the wishbone’. This connects the neck and sternum and roughly equates to the bird’s clavicle. The participants would close their eyes and make a wish before wrenching the bones apart, and the winner would be the one holding the majority of bone, supposedly bringing good luck. Despite the ubiquity of this horrific act, people of the time did not usually engage in other supernatural rituals such as necromancy, Satan worship or human sacrifice. 

The Queen’s Speech

In the late 20th century the Queen nailed the 3pm slot with this vlog, garnering the sort of views a modern influencer would sell their soul for if it were not already mortgaged to Shein. The speech was earnest stuff about the Commonwealth and helping the disabled, but the nation loved it. This was different to now, when no one gives much of a toss about Charles desperately trying to prove he’s got kingly gravitas while swerving the subject currently most associated with his family, noncing.

Not having a Christmas Eve box

You may wonder what people did on Christmas Eve without small gifts and treats to keep them occupied. The answer is that the entire nation, with no exceptions, watched The Little and Large Show, in which a body positive man verbally harassed and bullied a beta male in glasses who was clearly on the spectrum. This, sickeningly, was considered entertainment.

Eating at the table

Family meals at Christmas used to be crowded affairs with extended family squashed around a smaller-than-required table on makeshift seating. Modern time-saving food products such as Waitrose sprouts with bacon and chestnuts in a tray did not exist, resulting in a gruelling, nightmarish day of food preparation for mums, including numerous sauces for which there was no room on the cooker. In those primitive times turkey was the only acceptable Christmas centrepiece and vegetarians were burned in the back garden for witchcraft.

Sign up now to get
The Daily Mash
free Headlines email – every weekday
privacy

How to stop yourself sobering up between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve

THERE’S a whole week between the year’s two biggest piss-ups. If you want to keep the party going while you wait, stay half-cut with this guide: 

Establish a support network

It’s unreasonable to expect you to do this by yourself. If you want to stay shitfaced for six days straight, you’re going to need a network of close friends and relatives to supportively place another drink into your trembling hands. Don’t feel like a burden though – you’ll be repaying the favour by grabbing them a bottle whenever you stumble uncertainly to the fridge.

Indulge your triggers

People trying to achieve a life of sobriety avoid anything that will set off their vice. Since you’re taking the opposite approach, constantly expose yourself to temptation. Anything from lingering in the cheerful atmosphere of a pub to putting yourself in stressful situations where you desperately need alcohol to calm your nerves will work. Perhaps visit the roughest local hostelry wearing a ‘MORE IMMIGRATION NOW!’ T-shirt? As long as you struggle to form barely coherent sentences, you’re doing it right.

Pace yourself

This is a marathon, not a sprint. You’re trying to find the sweet spot where you’re more than tipsy but not quite paralytic. Going too soft will bring the crushing mundanity of the festive dead zone into harsh relief, whereas drinking too much could send you spiralling into an ill-timed hangover on New Year’s Eve. Don’t waste all of December 31st hunched miserably over a toilet puking your guts up. That’s what January 1st is for.

Eat the bare minimum

Seasoned pissheads already know that eating’s cheating, but it’s especially important to remember this disclaimer at Christmas. With so many slices of cured meat and Pringles tubes to hand, it’s all too easy to inadvertently graze your way to clearheadedness. If you must eat more than the bare minimum needed to keep you alive, opt for chocolate liqueurs to keep your blood alcohol level up.

Ignore your limits

Over the course of the week your body is going to try to tell you to stop knocking back booze and drink a healthy glass of water instead. At times like these you’ll need to tap reserves of physical and mental determination. By ignoring the limits of what your liver, bowels and brain cells can tolerate, you’ll reach new plateaus of intoxicated merriment. Have you got a drink problem? No, you’re powering through the infamous wall!

Next story ›