Christmas dinner
Christmas Day, and as usual, we are spending it with friends. We call ourselves ‘Christmas orphans’. We are all immigrants, and our families are in other countries.
‘You have to see the Christmas decorations at the Empress’, I say. ‘They are the best thing. The best.’
And so, after lunch, we take a walk to the Empress. My husband Doug stays home because he still has a cold, but T, V, C, baby Jamie and I rug up and head out.
There’s a homeless man next to the pedestrian lights, in front of the kitchen renovations shop. He’s in a sleeping bag, sitting next to a three litre bottle of a soft drink and some empty crisp packets.
We don’t usually get homeless people this far down Mill Road. He’s got a hood over his face, I can’t tell if he’s awake or not.
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My parents would never tell me how much they earned.
But how much? I asked in my head. How much does it cost to live like this and not like that?
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T, V, and C walk ahead. I hang back to text Doug.
‘Hi honey, could you put together a box of food that we don’t need back please? There is a homeless man sleeping in front of the kitchen store on Mill Road who needs some dinner.’
I hang back because I don’t want them to see me.
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“First premise: Suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care are bad.
Second premise: If it is in your power to prevent something bad from happening, without sacrificing anything nearly as important, it is wrong not to do so.
Third premise: By donating to aid agencies, you can prevent suffering and death from lack of food, shelter and medical care, without sacrificing anything nearly as important.
Conclusion: Therefore, if you do not donate to aid agencies, you are doing something wrong.”
- Peter Singer, ‘the life you can save’
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Outside the pub, a moment’s doubt — are we being rude?
People who go to the pub on Christmas Day are people who have no-where else to go. I have somewhere — I just came from there. Are we intruding on other people’s loneliness? Can you even do that?
Someone helps carry Jamie’s pram in. The decorations are as insane as they are every year — Santas on every window pane, tinsel on the beer taps, even the walls are covered in wrapping paper. We find a seat in the back bar.
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An argument on Facebook, years ago, with a friend who works in international development. The Japanese tsunami has just happened, and an American living in Japan is asking other Americans to send socks. His reasoning: every human being feels better in a clean pair of socks.
I can’t see the problem. My friend can — to him it’s #swedow, ‘Stuff We Don’t Want’. Yet more well-intentioned crap being flung around the globe, clogging up distribution centres that need the floor space for food and tarps and generators.
Why does this guy think that socks should get the priority? How does he know people don’t need water more?
How can an outsider ever know who needs what?
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Oh hey, it’s E! We hug. E has a baby about the same age as Jamie, and she’s the landlady. We see her at the park a lot.
‘Happy Christmas!’ says E. ‘Good to see you, you didn’t want lunch did you? because you missed it, we just finished.’ She waves at a stack of dirty plates on the bar.
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At a church baby group they ask us to contribute to ‘a shoebox of hope’. Fill a shoebox with toys, and they’ll send the box to a child in the ‘developing world’ who wouldn’t otherwise get a present.
My mind fills up immediately — how much does it cost to send all those boxes? More than the cost of the contents? How much business is being taken from local toy makers and local shops in the countries they’re going to? Is it going to make Dad look bad because Dad can’t afford toys? Is it going to inflict Christmas on cultures that don’t have it? Sure, it feels nicer than giving money, but what if it isn’t? Because it isn’t, it really isn’t.
I imagine a kid dragging around a dirty teddy they won’t let go of. There’s nowhere to wash it, the climate is damp, and the teddy has mould inside. The teddy is making the child sick.
What kind of charity is that?
I want to explain this to the group, but it doesn’t seem polite.
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A couple of years ago, I realised I didn’t know how to talk normally to homeless people and I was ashamed. So I learned.
People who are homeless often say the worst part isn’t hunger, or cold, or violence. It’s isolation.
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Who was it who told me that story? Someone I know had Christmas lunch at the Empress once. Some disaster happened — their kitchen caught fire, or their gas was disconnected, or something, and they found themselves caught out and miserable on Christmas Day. So they came here because it was the only place they could think of that was open. They weren’t expecting Christmas lunch, but there it was — sprouts and everything. And then when they tried to pay, the guy behind the bar wouldn’t take their money.
And they couldn’t work out if they looked especially wretched, or if everyone in the pub was eating for free.
I look at the stack of plates. Did E and her husband just feed everyone for free?
I want to ask, but it doesn’t seem polite.
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I have money to give. Who should I give my money to?
I’m an outsider, how do I know who needs what?
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“All through history, those who can’t earn money have had to rely on mercy: fearful, changeable mercy, that can dissolve overnight if circumstances change, or opinions alter. Parish handouts, workhouses, almshouses — ad-hoc, makeshift solutions that make the helpless constantly re-audition if front of their benefactors; exhaustingly trying to re-invoke pity for a lifetime of bread and cheese.
“That’s why the invention of the welfare state is one of the most glorious events in our history… a system that allows dignity and certainty to lives otherwise chaotic with poverty and illness.”
- Caitlin Moran, ‘Unlike most of the coalition I was raised on benefit’. Moranthology.
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“(The Big Society) is the philosophy of the 19th century. What does ‘Big Society’ really mean? That if you become destitute the Salvation Army will step in? It doesn’t work. That’s why we invented the State.”
- Vernon Bognador, academic
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After Thatcher died, I found a quote in the paper where she was asked about her biggest regret.
She said that she had assumed that if she lowered taxes, people would give more to charity. We did not.
But even if we did — and we didn’t — how would we know where to put our money? We’re all outsiders to somewhere, how do we know who needs what? This is why I never complain about my taxes — I rely on the government to know more than I do about where the money needs to be spent. The vast majority of my contribution to society is in the form of tax. I’m proud to pay it.
But even after tax, I still have money I can spare. If I do not donate to aid agencies, I am doing something wrong.
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A smile, a chat, a box of turkey and some stuffing on Christmas Day.
Is that something the man outside the kitchen store would even want?
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“Beware of practising your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
- Matthew 6:1-4
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I hid my charity from my friends because I didn’t want to look like I was showing off.
I want to live in a world where giving is normal, and normal is made of what we see around us, and yet, I didn’t want to be seen.
I hid out of pride.
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How much does it cost, to live like that and not like this?
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This year, I will be giving away 5% of my after-tax income. This will be £26 a week, adding up to £1833 by the end of the year.
Written down it sounds like almost nothing. But it’s better than the ad-hoc, makeshift donations I’ve been making up to now.
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In the end I was too late.
By the time we got back to Mill Road, he was gone.
