People knock Christmas songs. Personally I’m a fan. I believe they can explain every element of the festive period. So let’s do it.
Do I wish it could be Christmas every day? I enjoy this time of year. I take pleasure in choosing good gifts. I’ve been into schools and nurseries dressed as Father Christmas, and my post-retirement gut girth has given an authenticity to my performance that previous years lacked.
Despite all this, the answer for me is an unequivocal no. Picture the scene in the Marler household on Boxing Day evening. The presents have been opened. I’ve constructed the gymnastics high beam for my eldest daughter. I’ve had a go and fallen off it. I’ve built the unicorn scooter for my youngest daughter, and been clever enough to realise that if I have a go at that too there’ll be no unicorn scooter left for anyone else to fall off.
But it’s an almost silent night. The kids have come off their sugar high and gone to bed. Some of them are even asleep, which hopefully means they can’t hear the strange noises coming from their parents down in the lounge. Hold on, what’s happening here? Is Mummy kissing Santa Claus? No, she’s helping him launch the Christmas tree out of the window, that’s what’s happening.
We were done with it all. The decorations were back in their boxes, the lights coming down, the tree on its way to the patio. All good, except the tree was a really ropey one, and as it was defenestrated (full disclosure, I had help from Daisy with this word), it dropped every single needle in its armoury on the living room floor. Which created a charming new Christmas tradition the next morning: the entire family on their hands and knees, picking thousands of dead pine needles out of the carpet.
Conclusion: Christmas on just one day is absolutely fine. Christmas every day would lead to debt, crying and everyone having the same build as a prop who stopped going to the gym before the first Christmas lights even went up. Bearing in mind that when I look in the full-length mirror at the moment I see a melted wheelie bin looking back at me, this is not a good thing. Okay. Last Christmas. Huge tune. Mixed memories for me: I was getting ready with my Harlequins team-mates for the Big Game against Gloucester at Twickenham. Different vibes to George Michael for sure.
Joe Marler embraced the festive spirit as he discussed Christmas traditions in his household
The former England star candidly admitted that retirement came at a right point in life for him
He opened up on the chaotic joys of Christmas in the Marler household with his four children
Did I give it my heart? Only partially. The Big Game is a beautiful tradition. Twickenham is different to usual, and that’s no bad thing. But I didn’t really fancy spending more time with Joe Launchbury and Danny Care than my non-rugby family, so I booked us all an Airbnb up in south-west London to try to bring it all together.
It was only a partial success. I know there’s not going to be a great deal of sympathy for a professional rugby player over Christmas; sure, you miss out on one special day with those dearest to you, but you get paid to play sport and you get paid well enough to make lots of other days special.
I was still tempted to take a sickie. It’s slightly Scroogey, I admit. Maybe retirement has come at the right point. It’s the same with East 17’s Stay Another Day. Not playing across this Christmas has meant I’ve watched more rugby games than ever before, and not only Leicester Tigers ones so I can see Dan Cole trotting on.
But I haven’t found myself wishing I had stayed for another day, a week or a month more. Instead I’ve enjoyed the watching. I’ve enjoyed coming up with ideas for how we can make our sport even better to watch. I might even put a future Mail Sport column together on the subject. Watch this space.
On to the big one. Do They Know It’s Christmas? This is a huge question for me, and one that I’m not sure anyone has ever answered to my satisfaction.
First things first. Who exactly are we defining as ‘they’? If we take the ethos of the original Band Aid single and assume it’s the people of Ethiopia, it’s a yes for me — not just because of the efforts of Sir Bob Geldof and the rest of the crew, but for the long tradition of Christian thought in that part of east Africa.
Beyond that, there are something like 8.5 billion people on this planet of ours. How many of those know it’s Christmas? Now it gets harder. People of other faiths know about Christmas, even as they don’t celebrate it. I’m told that in Japan they mark the day by going out and buying a big bucket of KFC, which is the sort of idea any front row forward can get his head around.
But what about isolated tribes in parts of the world less touched by our seasonal consumerist frenzy? Sure, a Christian missionary may have brought the message to these distant lands. But do they truly know Christmas as we do? Are they draping the front porch of their dwellings in icicle lights purchased from the nearest homestores emporium? Are they building unicorn scooters? Are they launching trees out of living room windows?
The 34-year-old called it a day on his career in November after 15 years as a professional
It’s a tough one, and something I’d like to give more thought to. But I can tell you one group who certainly know it’s Christmas: all those fat cats at the RFU who trousered massive bonuses this year, having told us players during Covid that we were all in this together, and then decided to keep the players on the cuts while paying themselves back. They don’t need Christmas to come every day. It already has.
On to Dean Martin. Deano made his position clear: he wanted to let it snow. I’m with him, on one condition: it snows properly. Not this rubbish half-snow half-rain nonsense, where it sticks around for half a day and then turns to brown mush. I want proper snow. The sort that means you can’t leave the house. The sort that brings branches down and leaves you eating tinned mandarin slices for breakfast.
This year, thanks to a lovely lady called Amy at the tour operator Aurora Zone, I had the opportunity for a trip of a lifetime: taking the kids to Lapland just before the big day itself. It was incredible. The depth of the snow! The sound of your feet crunching through it! The sound of my children’s laughter as they watched the poor reindeer at the front of my sled attempt to keep us moving up the slightest incline!
But this world of ours stays still for no-one, so before we raise our glasses to each other, a few thoughts forward and back. My rugby highlight of the year? An easy one — presenting Fin Baxter with his first cap in the changing-room at Eden Park in front of his dad. Handing over a cap but also passing the baton to my club team-mate and long-term successor with England. Now that’s a beautiful thing.
I want us all to celebrate everything Antoine Dupont did this year. Everything he touched turned to gold. Who is this freak? I love everything about him.
And a couple of wishes for the rugby year to come. I’d love England to attack the Six Nations with the same sort of adventure that saw us beat Ireland at Twickenham last March. I’d love us to show that adventure consistently, not just in the aftermath of defeats. And I want the British and Irish Lions tour to be everything that the Covid-blighted series of 2021 was not. I want a return to the sea of red in the stands. I want noise and passion and drama. I want the series to go to a third Test decider, and for us to win it! Sound like a deal?
