My Christmas: Jenny Reeve (Strike the Colours): "With the day of over-eating and cheap crackers fast approaching, the singer from the Glasgow indie-folk collective Strike the Colours tells us what the festive season means to her...


I’m not that fond of Christmas. It’s not that I don’t enjoy spending time with friends and family, or look forward to the food, daytime telly, boozing, pretty lights, that kind of thing.

It’s just that in my head I imagine snow and open wood fires, romance on a ridiculous scale, a man wearing one of those chunky woollen jumpers with diamond patterns on and if I’m honest, probably candles. Every year, I daydream about these things and instead end up sitting in a confined space with my (somewhat depleted) family feeling confused and cranky for no good reason with a paper hat on my head that keeps slipping down and making my ears itch.

I am so lucky in countless ways - I love and am loved in return, I have a dog called Panda who lets me put reindeer antlers on her without complaint and who has the good grace not to scratch them off until I am out of sight, no-one makes me go to the pantomime and generally speaking, none of my family get that upset if the actual day doesn’t yield a proper Christmas dinner (last year we had pizza on Christmas day, then actual Christmas dinner on the 3rd of January because no-one could be bothered to go to the supermarket on Christmas Eve).

So yeah, perhaps it’s more that I yearn for a traditional Christmas, or wish that more of my family lived in this country (or indeed, that we lived there!) so I could celebrate with them properly and not just grin stupidly at a webcam which then gets used for a tour of my brother’s nasal passages or my Dad’s orchids. Maybe.

Or perhaps I’m just not that into Christmas? Crass commercialism aside, it seems to make people very cross indeed and not at all rosey-cheeked and tra-la-la but then, I still haven’t met that guy in the chunky-knit sweater. I bet then I won’t be able to get enough of Bing Crosby, paper hats, mince pies and stupid cracker jokes.



Strike the Colours are having their own Christmas party at The Admiral, Glasgow on 23 Dec, with RM Hubbert, Burnt Island, Olympic Swimmers and Dave Gow of Sons & Daughters

"