Christmas

The best Christmas gift you can give yourself is to learn some poetry by heart

21 December 2019 9:00 am

Every Christmas I find I am living in the past. I blame my father. He was born in 1910 —…

The King of Christmas: A short story by Owen Matthews

21 December 2019 9:00 am

The Christmas King steps slowly from his house and sniffs the evening’s chill. His tread is dainty, for all his…

Away from the manger: the holy relics of Bethlehem

21 December 2019 9:00 am

‘No crib for a bed,’ says ‘Away in a Manger’ rather puzzlingly, since a crib is a manger. ‘No one…

Gay giraffes and dead in ditches: The Spectator 2019 quiz

21 December 2019 9:00 am

They said it  In 2019, who said: 1. ‘You have stolen my dreams and my childhood.’ 2. ‘I didn’t sweat…

Christmas with my brother

21 December 2019 9:00 am

Ever since I was a child, I’ve associated Christmas with my mentally disabled brother Chris. Technically, he’s my half-brother —…

Christmas without God in the Appalachians

21 December 2019 9:00 am

Christmas: without being grand and Proustian, this is a season when time present inevitably takes one back to time past.…

Andrew Sullivan: The evidence against Trump is overwhelming

14 December 2019 9:00 am

When people ask me what the mood is in DC these days, the only word I can come up with…

The unwritten rules of sending Christmas cards

7 December 2019 9:00 am

No one sends Christmas cards any more. Except that I do, and you might, and a few other people do…

Trump’s 19ft Christmas tree and 300lb gingerbread house are quintessentially American

15 December 2018 9:00 am

The most obnoxious advert on American television this Christmas season features a thirtyish man telling his wife he ‘got us…

Prue Leith’s Christmas kitchen nightmares

15 December 2018 9:00 am

Christmas in our family seems to guarantee tears and tantrums as well as jingle bells and jollity. Indeed, in my…

Illustrated by Carolyn Gowdy

The boy who dreams: A Christmas short story by Susan Hill

15 December 2018 9:00 am

‘Wake up, boy! Wake up…’ My father was shaking me and I was confused because it seemed that I had…

Time and Twitter seemed to stop

After five days of being snowed in, awe and wonder starts to wear off

15 December 2018 9:00 am

It took three hours for cabin fever to set in. Last Christmas, snowed in at the Oxfordshire homestead, my brother…

Why you should never read your own diary

15 December 2018 9:00 am

At the turn of the century, I started a diary. I’ve mostly typed it on old typewriters, bashing out a…

In the midst of Brexit agony, one thing remains certain: disputation needs drink

15 December 2018 9:00 am

It is enough to drive a fellow to the bottle. I am not given to agnosticism. My view is that…

Neil MacGregor: belief is what holds a society together

8 December 2018 9:00 am

‘But what must it be like for the fish?’ We’re talking about cormorants, Neil MacGregor and I, and the spectacular…

Remembering Gavin Stamp, former architecture writer of The Spectator

13 January 2018 9:00 am

Gavin Stamp, who died just before the year’s end, will be mourned by many Spectator readers. For years, particularly in…

How Christmas lunch became Christmas dinner

6 January 2018 9:00 am

It was a culinary triumph. My hosts do not spend much time in the UK, and are determined to entertain…

We all suffer ‘old age’ ailments – that doesn’t mean we all need a scan

16 December 2017 9:00 am

Memory, neuroscientists tell us, is fallible. It is a dynamic process whereby each time we remember something, it will be…

China’s new way to drown out the Christmas message? A sea of tat

16 December 2017 9:00 am

If you think capitalism has blinged up Christmas, you should see what the Communists are doing to it. At this…

There’s something about Mary: ‘Madonna of the Rosary’, 1539, by Lorenzo Lotto

The time has come for one of the most fascinating and idiosyncratic Renaissance artists

16 December 2017 9:00 am

Lorenzo Lotto’s portraits — nervous, intense and enigmatic — are among the most memorable to be painted in 16th-century Italy,…

Radio 3 offers a refreshing antidote to the current conversations about Europe

16 December 2017 9:00 am

The season of Advent, for most children, means anticipation, gleeful waiting, the counting down of days. But after a certain…

Taki: The forgotten heroes of Christmas

16 December 2017 9:00 am

It’s that time of year again. Yippee! And get your wallets out. Scrooges are no longer tolerated at Christmas, although…

Melissa Kite: Hell is a porcelain kitchen tile

16 December 2017 9:00 am

If only I knew whether I would have a kitchen, I could order a turkey. But despite having an almost…

Ali Smith’s Winter is calm, cool and consoling

4 November 2017 9:00 am

In 1939, Barbara Hepworth gathered her children and her chisels and fled Hampstead for Cornwall. She expected war to challenge…

In praise of Advent

26 November 2016 9:00 am

The first Sunday of Advent is 27 November this year. For those of us who prefer Advent services to Christmas…