Keeping Christmas Simple – how grumpy becomes happy

London, United Kingdom

I have done it. I have survived my first Christmas Fair, the Spirit of Christmas at London’s Olympia. Me, Mr Grumpy, who has long claimed Christmas is for others and he should have nothing to do with it. It has always been too difficult. I am the one, actually one of many, who leaves shopping until the last minute. I am the one running down the High Street last thing on Christmas Eve, panicking because I have yet to buy a present. Each year I promise to do better and yet I remain just as hopeless. This time, I decided to be different. I would make the occasion simple, perhaps even fun.

Every year since 2001, Olympia has opened its doors to its Spirit of Christmas Fair some time in November. In squeeze 900 businesses and more than 50,000 visitors into two large halls. There are big stalls, small stalls, and sizes in between with a range of content that is both mind-boggling and remarkable.

Visiting the Fair would be simple, I thought, as I clutched my press pass and clomped up a part-hidden cast-iron staircase in a darkened corner of Olympia. I glanced at my watch. Surely, I could do everything in less than an hour? No chance. The press entrance led directly to the Great Tastes Market and it was there my troubles began. Within moments I realised that my one-hour allocation would be a huge underestimate. I had never heard of Great Tastes until that point, had no clue it was a benchmark for specialty taste and food, nor that it was the epicurean equivalent of literature’s Booker Prize. Five hundred judges, nearly 13,000 entries, 65 judging days, no wonder food creators fall over themselves in the race to be awarded three stars. I made it as far as the first stall, run by Lick the Spoon, took one nibble of their Gourmet Chocolate Salami and instantly concluded I was going nowhere in a hurry.

I may be Mr Grumpy, but I will also eat anything, anytime, anywhere. My allotted hour became two as I nibbled Christmas cake from Wimbledon, gobbled biscuits from St John’s Wood, pukka piccalilli from Norfolk, fudge from Canterbury, and caviar from Exmoor. Most were oozing ecology, had organic sources, and wrappings that were so environmentally conscious they would self-destruct even before they made it into their recyclable carrier bag.

Then came alcohol. I am supposed to be teetotal and have never once encouraged alcohol in the middle of the day. Yet at the Spirit of Christmas I defy you to reach the first corner without taking a sip, even a gulp, of something alcoholic. I swigged beer from Edmonton, sipped gin from Kensington, sniffed drink mixers from Parsons Green, caramel vodka from Stevenage, and tried a spirit that was somehow free of alcohol. There was even a stall enticing me to take cannabinol, although the stallholder eyed me with suspicion on the basis I might be Chinese and filch the idea. Last time I looked in a mirror, there was nothing Oriental about me.

A big problem with Olympia’s Spirit of Christmas is its two-level design. On the gallery were foods and alcohol, on the ground was everything else. That was my challenge, to walk down the perfectly straight staircase from gallery to ground without falling over, having overeaten, overdrunk and barely able to speak. Had it not been for a banister I would have tumbled within moments, but I arrived at ground level intact, but swaying precariously. Two strangers leaped forward instantly, each grasping an arm.

“You OK, mate?” asked one, who turned out to be selling fancy linen.

“Come and sit down,” said the other, who happened to be passing from a distant stall selling secateurs. Both tried to guide me towards a rickety seat that looked less stable than even me.

I mumbled something inaudible - part dribble, part speech - rebelled, and wobbled my way up and down the long lines of tidy stalls that formed the Spirit of Christmas ground floor. There were tens of dozens of hundreds, selling anything I might imagine. There was jewellery, kitchen goodies, bags and sleeping rolls. There were things for her and things for him plus plenty to make all sorts feel beautiful. Any item I could think of was in the Fair. There was even a stall where someone could write poems about anything, everything and nothing.

The names were truly inventive and a credit to business creativity - Duck and Crutch, Re-wrap-it, Rebel Roses, Thisisnessie, Biscottilicious, Beerblefish, even The Chuckling Cheese. These were names I could not pass by, while behind each stall was a smiling face, making me feel truly welcome. My planned one hour became two, two became four, and before I knew it, I had been at Olympia for most of the day.

There were near misses, too. Wheelchairs running over bargain hunters’ toes, display stands tumbling, while at one gardening stall an eager shopper tried to take a chunk from a salesman’s ear with an overenthusiastic set of shears. Olympia was in a buyers’ frenzy and by mid-afternoon the place was mayhem. I found it hard to move thanks to a myriad of people and ideas.

I took sanctuary in a place called Mossimann’s, a restaurant tucked around a corner, slightly beyond a bend. Mossimann’s, the Club with Royal appointment, which is normally found in London’s Belgravia. It had opened a prefabricated branch in Olympia. Nowhere else would offer afternoon tea from mid-day and brunch until 12:30. Two Eggs Benny had landed on my plate in less time than it takes to blink. They were slopping with fine mayonnaise and were down my hatch within moments. But Mossimann’s strength was not just its food, it was chatty as well, a place where stranger talks to stranger and is happy to blether.

Beside me sat a mother and her daughter, who were clearly experts at the art of shopping. The trick, the mother told me, was to make a list of all the family and buy everything in one sitting.  She had arrived with suitcases and bags and was filling each rapidly. By tea-time, her Christmas shopping would be done. She was frighteningly organised. Beside her on the table lay a perfectly positioned sheet of A4 paper on which she had drawn a two-column table. Down the left column were the names of her family, down the right were the presents she had bought. As I listened to her speak, and she was more than enthusiastic, I felt a wave of despair overwhelm me. This was how Christmas shopping was done by experts. There was no way I could compete.

Apart from leaving me outclassed, tipsy and bloated, with an understanding that Christmas shopping was an artform not a duty, Olympia’s Spirit of Christmas had a real effect on me. As I stumbled from Olympia’s doors six hours after I had calculated, I glanced in a tilted, stained mirror that a stall holder had hung for no reason. I saw Mr Grumpy looking back. Yet there was something different, too. Gone were the frown and wrinkles, vanished was the cantankerous face. Mr Grumpy had become Mr Happy. Spirit of Christmas had done the trick.