That's Not English (16 page)

In which we explore the pagan side of Christmas with our mutual friend Charles Dickens.

B
oth Americans and the English complain that the materialistic hype of Christmas begins earlier every year, but Americans don’t know the half of it. Without the speed bumps of Halloween and Thanksgiving, England is free to slide straight from the late-summer sales into the roiling commercial bacchanal of Jesus’s birthday. Grocery stores begin selling mince pies and Christmas puddings in August. Department stores unveil their seasonal wares in September. Carols may be heard across the land as early as October. So this is Christmas. By December, the English are sick of it, and who can blame them?

“The reason for the season,” as pious Americans remind us, has ceased to be the focus in either country. Americans’
shorthand for Christmas crosses Him right out:
Xmas
. This has not caught on in England. The English are known for their inventive nicknaming, which makes American attempts at abbreviation appear quaint by comparison. Without some strong context, it would be hard to know what people were talking about half the time. In a country where Paul McCartney is known as “Macca” and Prince Charles as “Chazza,” imagine what Jesus is in for. No, don’t. The silly nickname the English have invented for Christmas is
Crimbo
. It sounds like an antisocial act that could get you ten to fifteen in a maximum-security gaol (pronounced “jail”—the pokey, the clink, prison).
Crimbo
is more irreverent and less widespread than
Xmas
, but it’s also a word more likely to be verbalized, and when it is, it sounds a bit vulgar.

No one calls his grandmother to ask what she’s doing for Crimbo, but among friends, at the office, and especially with regard to the crasser aspects of Christmas—the shopping, the parties, the drinking, and the romantic opportunism—it’s Crimbo all the way. Leigh Francis, star of the popular sketch comedy show
Bo’ Selecta!
hit #3 on the charts with “Proper Crimbo,” a song about what “Crimbo” is all about: “Put up your Christmas tree (proper Crimbo) / So excited you might wee (proper Crimbo) . . . come sit on my knee / Got gifts for y’all what you got for me?” Ho, ho, ho indeed.

An abbreviation like
Crimbo
serves a strong need that the English have to appear that they don’t care all that much. They are far less willing than Americans to declare their intention, unironically, to have a good time, or to put pressure on themselves to do so. Besides, imagine how you would feel if you were routinely subjected to Christmas carols for the last four months
of each year. Enough, already! The urge to “big up” Christmas coexists with the conviction that it is likely to be disappointing in the end, so why not keep expectations low and preserve the possibility of being happily surprised? As a result, many people do report having a better time than they expected, at least, as one friend quipped, if they can remember it the next day.

The Christmas machine is so well oiled that some may be surprised to learn that the traditions of Christmas—and the accompanying anxiety to make it the most wonderful time of the year—are a relatively recent innovation, at least in a country with more than 240 years of history. One man in particular has had a greater influence on the way Christmas is celebrated in England than any other: Charles Dickens. Some have gone so far as to say he
invented
Christmas, though Dickens himself admitted his treatment of the subject had been partly inspired by the American author Washington Irving’s lavish depiction of an English country Christmas, published in
The Sketch Book
in 1820, more than twenty years before
A Christmas Carol
.

Dickens’s novel enshrined a secular and extravagant ideal that continues to inform most Christmas imagery and advertising today: the family gathered around a feast of turkey and trimmings, the celebration of all that is good and generous, the giving of gifts, and the potentially transformative nature of the holiday itself. If Bob Cratchit can have a proper Crimbo, why can’t we? Even Ebenezer Scrooge eventually acquires the holiday spirit, so that “it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us!” (No pressure.) Still, it is worth remembering that
A Christmas Carol
, while
remembered for its joyful ending, was billed as a ghost story. The English embrace the dark side of Christmas in a way that Americans do not. They also really know how to laugh it off.

That’s why no chapter on Crimbo would be complete without an attempt to explain Panto. That’s short for pantomime, which the English essayist Max Beerbohm once described as “an art form specially adapted to English genius.” Pantomime has been around, in one form or another, since the Middle Ages. Its current form can be described, pretentiously, as combining the traditions of the British music hall with Italian
commedia dell’arte
. But it’s harder to describe in plain terms what Panto is and what it means to the English. Andrzej Lukowski, the theatre editor for
Time Out London
, has said, “Frankly, pantos are so weird . . . I’ve never managed to explain what they are to somebody who didn’t already know.”

All pantos share certain conventions. There will be a plot based on a fairy tale or well-known story—
Cinderella
,
Aladdin
,
Peter Pan
,
Puss in Boots
, and
Jack and the Beanstalk
are evergreen. There are archetypal characters, such as the Pantomime Dame, usually played by an older male actor in drag; the Principal Boy, usually played by a young actress in tights; a frothy Fairy Godmother type; and a hammy Villain. The audience will expect big musical numbers, double entendre and innuendo that fly over the heads of children in the audience, slapstick, and, above all, crowd participation. Breaking the fourth wall is standard practice in Panto. Audience members (usually children) will be called up to the stage, often asked to solve a problem or find something or someone who has gone missing. Those left in their seats will help by yelling out, as one, catchphrases like, “HE’S BEHIND YOU!” The actors will shout back, “OH
NO, HE ISN’T,” and the audience will respond, “OH YES, HE IS!” It gets extremely raucous, but within certain boundaries that everyone knows and respects. To the uninitiated, Panto can seem like an inside joke on a national scale. It is incredibly silly, but it is also a serious business, lighting up the darkest season of the year.

Eminent actors, writers, and theaters jump at the chance to participate in this seasonal madness. The first Panto I ever saw was at the venerable Old Vic in London. It was a parody of
Cinderella
written by Stephen Fry. In the previous year’s production, Sir Ian McKellen had starred as the Pantomime Dame, the Widow Twankey. This allowed the
Guardian
’s reviewer, Michael Billington, to get in on the fun, proclaiming that “at least we can tell our grandchildren that we saw McKellen’s Twankey, and it was huge.” Pantomime’s commercial appeal is ironclad, as it pulls in all ages, both seasoned theatergoers and those who see one play a year. A good one can sell out six to eight weeks’ worth of performances in spite of competition from parties and other Christmas entertainments. If you’re going to your first Panto, be prepared to laugh yourself hoarse at half the jokes, and to need the other half explained to you.

Pantomime is practically unknown in America. This doesn’t mean that American stars can’t get in on the action—but it does mean that those who do are usually brought in mainly for their novelty value. In recent years, both David Hasselhoff and Vanilla Ice have played Captain Hook in regional English theaters (Bristol and Chatham, respectively). As I write this, Henry Winkler—
the Fonz himself
—is playing Hook in Liverpool. Emma Samms of
Dynasty
and Pamela Anderson have gamely played a Good Fairy and Aladdin’s Genie, though
Anderson admitted that when she first agreed to appear in a Liverpool pantomime, she thought it was “miming in a box, which wasn’t the case but I already said I would do it.” On that note, it seems appropriate to leave Crimbo with the ominous words of Jacob Marley’s ghost, reminding us that “no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunity misused.”

In which a gracious art is defended from its detractors.

I
n English English, the word
tip
has several meanings. As in American English, it can be a gratuity given for service. But a tip can also be a garbage dump. This dual meaning is appropriate, and rather funny, since most English people regard American tipping habits as a load of old rubbish. One of the most common complaints the English make after visiting America is that everyone who serves them seems to have his hand out for a handout. The BBC’s Kevin Connolly captured the prevailing spirit nicely when he griped that “almost every transaction you undertake in America is booby-trapped with social awkwardness.” One of the more extremely worded complaints came from Max Wooldridge, travel writer for the
Daily Mail
:

I am constantly amazed that everyone in the US has blindly accepted tipping as a way of life. The transatlantic slave trade was tolerated for many years but that didn’t make it right. Different world religions are universally accepted but you are free not to subscribe to them . . . But when it comes to tipping, in the US at least, you are forced to participate whether you agree with it or not. And worse, if you moan about it for even a second you are immediately labeled a tight-wad or a pocket-patter.

One would think, given the invective directed toward American tipping by the English, that England and America had wildly divergent tipping practices. This is not the case. Americans are slightly more generous than the English when it comes to tipping. Americans tend to tip 20 percent, rather than the 10–15 percent that is standard in England. But it’s the culture around tipping—who and when and why we tip—that is the source of this seemingly disproportionate angst.

Travel websites and newspaper articles bristle with warnings about the “notoriously fearsome” (the
Telegraph
) tipping culture in America. Stories abound of vacationing Brits being chased out of restaurants by American servers, irate at having been tipped half what they expected. One Englishman told the BBC he had abandoned tipping altogether and was instead leaving his servers preprinted thank-you cards. (If he tried this in New York he would have to be carried out of the restaurant in a body bag.) His approach is not the norm—most vacationing Brits go ahead and follow American tipping protocol, even though many later go online and declare it mad (crazy).

Often their annoyance is focused on the fact that most
tipped workers—particularly restaurant servers—do not earn a living wage in America. In some states, their employers are legally allowed to pay them as little as $2.13 an hour, with the understanding that their tips make up the rest. Many English tourists argue that it is shameful for such a rich country to treat its workers so poorly and that they, the consumers, should not have to bear the burden of America’s low minimum wage. Not to mention that cash tipping enables tax evasion on the part of restaurants and workers alike. They do have a point. But most high-minded rants about labor laws eventually give way to more mundane concerns: The English find American-style tipping awkward, and they resent being considered cheap if they don’t pony up. This particularly rankles when it comes to bartenders. English bartenders don’t expect tips, and are happy to be bought the occasional drink by their regulars, who signal their intentions by saying “and one for yourself” when it’s time to pay. No wonder they marvel that bartenders in the United States expect one to two dollars per drink. Why should they pay extra to people fulfilling their basic job requirements?

In England all staff over twenty-one are paid a minimum wage of £6.31 per hour (about $9.50), tipped or not. Since the 1943 Catering Wages Act, service employees have been guaranteed a wage that significantly reduces their dependence on tips. In recent years, most restaurants have even embraced the Continental practice of adding a standard service charge that takes the place of a tip, and printing “service included” on their bills to let customers know. A couple of generations in England have grown up with this model, and that explains why the American system seems ridiculous to them. It’s not that they are cheap, it’s just that tipping is not as universal—or as important—in
England as it is in America. The English aren’t used to it, and it makes them nervous. Some sources of information on tipping magnify this anxiety with a nannying tone. The TripAdvisor website shames would-be tippers with lines like “In the UK, the price you pay for a spa treatment is all-inclusive. You are not expected to secrete money somewhere about your person in order to tip your masseur!” In the United States, this is considered something of an art form, as is palming the cash for the coat-check person, such that it is never flashed but covertly passed at the same time your coat is returned. In England there is a little metal tray by the coat check and people who choose to tip ping pound coins into it as loudly as possible so their generosity will not be missed by anyone within five feet.

Americans are alternately proud and defensive of their tipping habits. They are not immune from anxiety about tipping, but they are forced to confront it early and often, and developing tipping skills (the math is just the beginning) is a crucial part of their education. A straightforward psychology underlies American-style tipping. Those who choose to tip generously do so because they know service people work hard for little money, they feel guilty about the unequal relationship of the server and the served (perhaps having worked in service jobs themselves), and they want to be seen as generous. Also, they respond to guilt trips. (A coffee shop where I was once a regular had a sign on its tip jar that read
KARMA
IS
A
BOOMERANG
.) But above all, Americans like to think of their society as one in which hard work is rewarded, and they like these rewards to be at their discretion. Even if they consistently tip 20 percent regardless of service, as many do, they like the idea that they are choosing, case by case, what to give.

The very few American restaurants that have abolished
tipping have made international news, even though some of them simply replaced it with a European-style service charge of around 18 percent. Restaurateurs who have done this report that Americans will often choose to tip anyway, or will argue that their tips would have been more generous than the service charge. They dislike the feeling that they have no influence—whether real or perceived—over the quality of service they get. According to a survey by Zagat, 80 percent of Americans prefer tipping to paying a service fee. One woman, commenting on the
Daily Mail
’s travel blog, summed it up:

I found it uncomfortable to be charged a set service fee in our very nice London hotel/restaurant. Some of the wait staff were superb and efficient, some asleep at the wheel, and I felt there should be a differential in compensation. Not a difference between zero and twenty percent, but perhaps a difference between ten to twelve percent and twenty to twenty five percent . . . When I discussed it with the manager, he said their wait staff pools all the tips—a much more socialist orientation than an American staff would prefer. Waiters in the U.S. have a more entrepreneurial spirit. Here it isn’t viewed as exploitation of low-income workers, but an opportunity for a worker to generate as much extra as he or she cares to.

Ah, capitalism: the entrepreneurial spirit that animates America! Interestingly, how much we tip has been proven not to have much impact on the quality of service we receive, but it is an article of faith in America that a good tip—and the potential to earn tips—makes for better service. Americans are so well known for this attitude that you may be shocked to hear that not
only did they not originate the practice of tipping, they once fought to outlaw it.

Tipping is thought to have begun in seventeenth-century England, where the word
tip
referred to cash given to tavern staff. Some sources claim that the letters
T
.
I
.
P
. originally stood for “to insure promptitude,” but an explanation so tidy has to be apocryphal. Tipping was an established practice among European aristocrats, and the
OED
definition of
tip
captures the attitude in which tips were given: “A small present of money given to an inferior, esp. to a servant or employee of another for a service rendered or expected.” Well-heeled and well-traveled Americans encountered this custom and eagerly imported it to America just after the Civil War. It went over like a lead balloon in a society that had been founded on notions of equality. Soon an antitipping lobby formed. Its central document, William Rufus Scott’s
The Itching Palm
, denounced tipping succinctly: “Tipping, and the aristocratic idea it exemplifies, is what we left Europe to escape.” Tipping was the “mortal foe” of democracy because “unless a waiter can be a gentleman, democracy is a failure. If any form of service is menial, democracy is a failure.” Some states attempted to ban tipping altogether, but these bans proved unenforceable and all were repealed by 1926 as tipping gained a foothold. There were still hopes in some quarters that the controversial custom would not last. Scott went so far as to say that “If tipping is un-American, some day, some how, it will be uprooted like African slavery.”

That sounds extreme, but it’s interesting to note that in Europe, where higher minimum wages and standardized service charges are the norm, waiting tables is seen as a profession, while Americans still regard it as more of a transitional job.
There is ample evidence that servers can increase their take by doing things like writing thank-yous and smiley faces on checks, kneeling next to tables while taking orders, and touching patrons gently on the shoulder—all of which emphasize their lower status and the extent to which their livelihoods depend on pleasing others. As Chelsea Welch, a former Applebee’s waitress, wrote in
The Guardian
, “I’ve been waiting tables to save up some money so I could finally go to college, so I could get an education that would qualify me for a job that doesn’t force me to sell my personality for pocket change.” Not all tipped employees take such a dim view of the system. For Americans, the individualism tipping affords for server and served alike—the ability to distinguish oneself through superior service or generosity—has triumphed over any fear that it undermines democracy. In fact, over the past one hundred years, Americans seem to have decided that tipping is democratic after all. Whether they will still think so a hundred years from now, who can say? But in the meantime, the English should stop worrying and learn to love tipping—at least when they are visiting America. After all, they started
it.