![article body image]()
25th December, 1952Barbara Skelton (Mrs Cyril Connolly) records in her diary:
"It was a sunny crisp morning and we enjoyed the drive to the Ian Flemings. Everyone subdued when we entered the sitting-room. The Duchess of Westminster was sitting alone in a far corner. Peter Quennell came up and talked. They all appeared smug and spiritless. We listened to the Queen's speech. Someone said how middle-class the Royal Family were. Cyril told me afterwards that it's the chic thing to say. The Duchess of W put on a special voice when talking of the lower classes, implying riffraff. A good turkey, with a nasty sausagemeat stuffing and soggy brussels sprouts. The Christmas pudding was good with a rich brandy butter sauce. Ian distributed a collection of sexy mottoes and a dummy Lucky Strike carton from the States; when turning a lever one could see a succession of nude girls. Peter couldn't stop looking at them. Presents were given—an embarrassment. From Ann a box of Floris soap, talcum powder and eau de Cologne. From Ian, a used pencil, a used lighter and a dirty motto. We left them playing canasta."
25th December, 1952Joan Wyndham, a WAAF, records in her diary:
"My first Christmas in Scotland. I had behaved so well for the last few months, and everyone here thought I was such a nice, quiet intellectual little girl—but not any more! We were up at the men's Mess, and it was fantastic—colossal buffet, unlimited booze. I decided to break out and go on a jag. I can't remember when I got so drunk or felt so exhilarated, except possibly when I was out with my dad. I have an awful feeling I called the CO a stinker—it was one of those religious arguments about whether the popes had mistresses. 602, our international squadron, flew over for the party and parked their Spitfires practically in our backyard. I remember waltzing and eating plum pudding, and then being very sick in the laurels. A very nice pongo drove me home and wanted to kiss me but I said 'No,' and he said, 'God, what a swine I am trying to take advantage of a gel when she's tight!'
“Mama wrote saying how much she had liked Hamish. Sent me a kettle—unobtainable up here—some ginger nuts, some Persian oil, and a beautiful silk kimono. The dressing-gown has been a great success. The girls tell me I look the personification of sin in it. I wonder why? I suppose one connects kimonos with Brighton."
25th December, 1995Brian Eno, musician, writes in his diary:
"Morning excitement as the girls open their gifts. A Barbie horse and carriage for Darla that takes me two hours to put together and then no pissing batteries (but the Indian shop was open)."
25th December, 1940Harold Nicolson writes in his diary:
“The gloomiest Christmas Day that I have yet spent. I get up early and have little work to do [at the Ministry of Information]. Finish reading the memoranda on local organisations with which I have been supplied. Have talk with Hall about the reorganisation of our propaganda among minor nationalities in the USA. Lunched alone at Antoine’s and read a book of Pitt’s war speeches. Hear the King on the wireless. Pick Raymond [Mortimer, literary editor of the New Statesman] up at the Ritz Bar where I meet Puffin Asquith [film director] and Terence Rattigan [playwright].
“After that I have a nice dinner with Raymond at Prunier. I then go back to the Ministry, where there is a party downstairs followed by a film.
“Poor old London is beginning to look very drab. Paris is so young and gay that she could stand a little battering. But London is charwoman among capitals, and when her teeth begin to fall out she looks ill indeed.”
25th December, 1866The Reverend Benjamin Newton, Rector of the parish of Wath in Yorkshire, writes in his diary:
"Married a young parishioner of the name of Mahershallalashbaz Tuck. He accounted for the possession of so extraordinary a name thus: his father wished to call him by the shortest name in the Bible, and for that purpose selected Uz. The clergyman making some demur, the father said in pique, 'Well, if he cannot have the shortest he shall have the longest.'"
25th December, 1911William Lashly, the engineer on Scott's final Antarctic expedition, writes in his journal:
"Christmas Day and a good one. We have done 15 miles over a very changing surface. First of all it was very crevassed and pretty rotten; we were often in difficulties as to which way we should tackle it. I had the misfortune to drop clean through, but was stopped with a jerk when at the end of my harness. It was not of course a very nice sensation, especially on Christmas Day and being my birthday as well. Anyhow, Mr Evans, Bowers and Crean hauled me out and Crean wished me many happy returns of the day. I thanked him politely and the others laughed, but were pleased I was not hurt bar a bit of a shake."
25th December, 1913Raymond Asquith, eldest son of the Prime Minister, writes to Lady Diana Manners:
"I must apologise for sending you Aubrey Beardsley's drawings but I do so want to lead you back from your tainted and artificial ideals for a simpler, saner, more childlike outlook upon life. Anyhow, they will do for Bonar Law's bedroom next time he stays with you.
"Here we have to knock along as best we may without the faintest element of corruption—not a hint of decay, not a breath of Leon Bakst; on the contrary, Christmas cards, Morris dances, children's prattle, woolwork, goodwill and so forth—all that was ever joyous and clear and fresh."
25th December, 1911Lieutenant Henry “Birdie” Bowers, quartermaster and one of the five members of Captain Scott's final, fatal Antarctic expedition, records their Christmas celebration on the way to the South Pole:
“In the afternoon we got clear of crevasses pretty soon, but towards the end of the afternoon Captain Scott got fairly wound up and went on and on. The breeze died down and my breath kept fogging my glasses, and our windproofs got oppressively warm and altogether things were pretty rotten. At last he stopped and we found we had done 14 3/4 miles. He said, 'What about fifteen miles for Christmas Day?' so we gladly went on - anything definite is better than indefinite trudging.
"[For dinner,] we had a great feed which I had kept hidden and out of the official weights since our departure from Winter Quarters. It consisted of a good fat hoosh [stew] with pony meat and ground biscuit; a chocolate hoosh made of water, cocoa, sugar, biscuit, raisins, and thickened with a spoonful of arrowroot. (This is the most satisfying stuff imaginable.) Then came 2 1/2 square inches of plum-duff each, and a good mug of cocoa washed down the whole. In addition to this we had four caramels each and four squares of crystallized ginger. I positively could not eat all mine, and turned in feeling as if I had made a beast of myself. I wrote up my journal - in fact I should have liked somebody to put me to bed."
25th December, 1931Virginia Woolf writes in her diary:
"Lytton [Strachey] is still alive this morning. We thought he could not live through the night. It was a moonlit night. Nessa [her sister] rang up at 10 to say that he has taken milk and tea after an injection. He had taken nothing for 24 hours and was only half-conscious. This may be the turn or it may be nothing. Now again all one's sense of him flies out and expands and I begin to think of things I shall say to him, so strange is the desire for life."
