As The Crow Flies - Ed.11 - Should Pubs 'Deck the Halls'?

It is December and I have been asked ‘where’s your christmas tree?’ by customers so many times that it has made me question my longstanding position that Christmas has no place in the pub. I could easily be labelled as a ‘grinch’ by those who go in for such categorisations, but I have always had a good reason for this particular bit of festive humbuggery. I am passionate about pubs, and their roles as third spaces and community providers. ‘Third space’ is a term that is thrown around a lot and is susceptible to misinterpretation, but my understanding of a third space is ‘a place where we can exist outside of the context placed upon us by the pressures of the homestead or the workplace’. Christmas is a stressful time of year for almost everybody, whether it’s the financial pressures associated with gifts, travel, and food, or the dread of seeing those members of your family you’d rather forget about. The pub should be a sanctuary from these stresses, a place where, if only for half an hour, you can sit down with a pint and unshackle yourself from the responsibilities of home and work life. Ducking under 15 year old wilko tinsel to get to the bar, and being subjected to Mariah Carey’s warbling wrench us back to the reality we have come to the pub to avoid. That has been my longstanding position on the matter anyway, but I have recently begun to interrogate my stance. 

Christmas is an extremely lonely time of year for lots of people, and the role of the pub as a community provider is never more important than at these times. If you live alone it is fairly unlikely that you will go to the effort of erecting a Christmas tree, or adorning picture frames with bits of tinsel, but you may look forward to seeing them in the pub. In fact for some people the decorations in their local might be the extent of the Christmas cheer that they receive this festive season. Who am I to begrudge them that? Just because these trimmings have painful associations for me, doesn’t mean it is or should be that way for everyone. We all have varying relationships with Christmas, as we do with pubs, and publicans would tie themselves in knots trying to cater to everybody’s own personal expectations of each. 

When discussing the place of Christmas in the pub, it is difficult to avoid the christmas jumper wearing herd of elephants in the room. A huge amount of pub trade in December consists of groups of workers, out on their Christmas staff parties, and they are in large part responsible for the increased takes in pubs in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Is there an argument to be made therefore that the least we can do as publicans is throw up some decorations to facilitate their festive cheer? Though I admit, pandering to seasonal drinkers does feel a bit like leaving a mince pie and milk out for Santa to me. In one instance you are providing refreshment to someone you don’t know, who once a year barges into the place you call home, uninvited, and makes a mess of the place. The other instance involves a bloke in a big red coat. Extremely obvious jokes aside, I do think that the answer to my original question might actually be yes, despite the scrooge that I am. Chris Bamford (owner of The Crow, Harlequin and The Rutland Arms) offers a counterpoint however:

‘Pubs can be different (to one another) all year round, so why should they all conform to a single set of festive rules in December? Somewhere can be festive free or a full Christmas disco and it’s up to the customer to make their choice. Not conforming to a single standard increases choice rather than reduces it’

Chris' thoughts reinforce a stance that I have held for a while now; that it is a fool's errand for pubs to attempt to please everybody, because they never will. This is because everybody's relation to The Pub is different, and what each of us get out of going to the pub varies drastically. It is impossible for a single venue to provide for each and every potential customer's idea of what The Pub should be, and so attempting to do so inevitably leads to it falling short across the board. It’s the jack of all trades, master of none philosophy. Ultimately the proprietor of a pub should have a clear vision and act on it, making slight adjustments to ensure that the customers who share their vision are enjoying their experience as much as they can. 

 Ultimately I can probably put up with a bit of cheap tinsel, if it makes other people happy. If a pub wants to go full festive cheer, I can acknowledge that maybe I should just choose somewhere else to drink for the month of December, rather than condemning them for not conforming to my ideal.  Christmas music in pubs is a Rubicon that I will never cross however. December is a hard enough time of year for hospitality staff, without being subjected to the same handful of songs, day in, day out. Michael Buble should receive cold food and headless beer for the rest of his life as penance for what he has done to us.