Christmas
My six-year-old grandson got Grand Theft Auto, certificate 18, for Christmas
I was at home in Devon for the month of December. My sister was also there and her tyrannical, wildly…
War & Peace is actually just an upmarket Downton Abbey
Gosh what a breath of fresh air was Andrew Davies’s War & Peace adaptation (BBC1, Sundays) after all the stale…
Why would a dissolute rebel like Paul Gauguin paint a nativity?
Martin Gayford investigates how this splendid Tahitian Madonna came about and why religion was ever-present in Gauguin's art
My part-time boyfriend and I bonded over the Tooting Honey Toilets
A boyfriend’s for life, not just for Christmas. It’s no good me getting myself a nice cuddly man with whom…
The Lord’s Prayer is no more offensive than Jeremy Clarkson or deodorant
There was a time not so very long ago when the most common complaint about Christmas was that it had…
Father Christmas will be 400 next year
Christmas birthday Next year has a claim to be the 400th birthday of Father Christmas. Ben Jonson wrote a short…
The question Christianity fails to answer: ‘Who is my neighbour?’
‘Fine old Christmas,’ wrote George Eliot, ‘with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his duty that year in…
A Christmas parable from the Spectator’s business editor
I thought you might enjoy a little parable for Christmas, so here goes… The boardroom clock said twelve minutes…
Whatever happened to real Christmases?
As I strolled through the aisles in a large department store, I almost choked when I read a large display…
Tis the season for disagreeing with your spouse about everything
The older I get, the more Scrooge-like I become. I’m dyspeptic, misanthropic, curmudgeonly, parsimonious and unsentimental. Caroline, by contrast, is…
Seasonal advice from David Cameron, Jilly Cooper, John Rutter and more
Clare Balding I love a good walk on Boxing Day followed by watching the racing at Kempton. Avoid the internet.…
My surreal Christmas in hospital with a dangerously ill child
My surreal Christmas in hospital with a dangerously ill child
Why 'safe' is Dot Wordsworth's word of the year
‘Makes me feel sick,’ said my husband, referring not to the third mince pie of the morning (in Advent, supposedly…
Twenty things I will ban when I am elected your Dictator For Life in 2016
The two things I hate most about Christmas are a) Advertland showing me how sparkly and joyous my home and…
Radio is flowering because it’s so much more potent than TV
Who would have thought in this visually obsessed age of YouTube, selfies and Instagram that radio, pure audio, no images…
Tips from Just William on making a Christmas list
William Brown had the right idea about Christmas lists. Under the heading ‘Things I Want for Christmas’, he requests: a…
There’s nothing British about it but one in six Britons now celebrates Thanksgiving
I have always found Thanksgiving, which was celebrated in the United States last week, the most agreeable and least stressful…
Here I am on Twelfth Night with nothing but benevolence to look back on
For the past two and a half years my brother John has been living next door to me in the…
Joan Collins’s diary: The joy of fake Christmas trees
Every year Christmas comes earlier and earlier in America. Cards, baubles and imitation trees were being sold in the big…
Penelope Lively’s notebook: Coal holes and pub opera
I have been having my vault done over. Not, as you might think, the family strong room, but the place…
The threat to Christmas carols – and how to save them
A glorious, healthy and intensely pleasurable tradition is in danger
Pippa Middleton on wine, fishing and Kim Kardashian
A few days ago I went truffle hunting in Piedmont. It’s been a bumper year for white truffles in northern…
Snow - art’s biggest challenge
In owning a flock of artificial sheep, Joseph Farquharson must have been unusual among Highland lairds a century ago. His…
Forgive us our Christmases as we forgive those who Christmas against us
After lunch on Christmas Day my father always stood at the sink in his apron and yellow Marigolds and did…
Without Jesus and with less Santa, what does Christmas mostly consist of?
More than ever this year I find friends planning to go abroad for Christmas, some to countries such as India…
