After arriving in the early hours of the morning and having to wait outside I took stock of winter in the city. In the history of painting there were many landscapes about the Earth being closer to the sun, yet there weren't many Classical paintings of cities beneath the frost. How did Manchester look five hundred years ago on the site of the Christmas markets? The Britons, Angles and Danes perhaps met on this very spot and traded goods under the midwinter sun, preparing for Pagan and Christian feasts. A ram would have been killed in the fog, it's freshly skinned head emerging from a hessian sack as a sacrifice to the Gods of Yule. Meanwhile the Britons would celebrate Saturnalia by doing the opposite of what was normal. War hardened soldiers would wear women's clothes and dogs would act like pigs, each gave presents and passed the berries of mistletoe by kissing one another. Bonfires would be lit and epic poems would be told of Norse ghosts made of mud and of the giants D'Frigga and Yol-M'nnstatr sleeping in the earth. Nowadays the city slowly begins to wake with the smell of Greggs and bus exhausts, commuters beginning to flow in from primate nests and jauntily begin to jog up and down the pavement jostling for a free copy of the Metro or a cup of hot java. The workers of the Christmas market begin to arrive wearing bubble vests and bobble hats, faces pinched red from the cold and stained with iron oxide. I walk across the cobbles like some kind of prehistoric bird, head swivelling from side to side as I admire the warez being offered.
The hours pass by with ease as I make my circuit, snorting down hotdogs and talking to the city folk about whether or not it was about to snow, mind frantic at the Christmas shopping opportunities around me. 8.3% of your life haunted by a festive holiday. 8.3% of the twentieth century, of television, of conversation. I begin to climb the walls of the town hall, shouting at the people below.
“Cease sublimation!” I cry, heaving my entire body up using my fingertips, carefully picking my way up the brickwork. Eventually I reach the enormous Father Christmas and look down at the shoppers below. Some are jeering, others call for me to get away from Father Christmas. I take the fictional man in my hands and begin to shake and pull at it, trying to dislodge it.
“Is Father Christmas just an elf?!” I bellow, managing to tear the festive sculpture free from the steel supports. With the groaning of metal it begins to tip down towards the crowd. There is an enormous crash as the Santa lands on top of the market. I look down, suddenly aware of what I had done.
“No...no!” I say. But it appears as if a Christmas miracle has happened! Father Christmas has been impaled through the head with a gigantic crucifix brought in by religious extremists. Everybody is saved! I jump for joy.
“Looks like the son of God didn't die in vain after all.” I say, unzipping my jacket. I am wearing a Big Face t-shirt with Nelson Mandela on it.
“Silent night, holy night,
Son of God
Watched at night.
Crowning angels are silent at bed.
Holy Mary, mother of grace.
Rest in heavenly peace.
Sleep in heavenly peace.” I sing beautifully.
