Tales of the Country: The tuneful version of an English tradition

On Saturday night, as we sat down with our friends Cathy and Pete to eat the brace of pheasants so kindly delivered a couple of weeks before by Robert, the grand vizier of the parish council, there was a distant sound like a chorus of angels. At first I thought I had died and gone to heaven, which with those little gullet-sized bones you get in pheasant casseroles, was a not-impossible scenario. But of course it was carol-singers, about 20 of them, which just about represents the entire population of Docklow. In fact, they were probably outside Debbie and Eddie's house, half-way through "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" before they realised that Debbie and Eddie were at the back, singing.

Whatever, I can't tell you how much pleasure it gave me to hear such lovely voices, and to open the door to row upon row – two-and-a-half rows, anyway – of shining faces, belting out "Once In Royal David's City". Because I can't remember the last time we had carol singers. They hardly ever came along our street in Crouch End, and when we did get them it was a couple of sullen youths offering a tuneless "Away In A Manger" probably in a bid to fund a night's supply of cheap cider.

On Hallowe'en, on the other hand, our bell in London N8 hardly ever stopped ringing, as gangs of trick-or-treaters stormed up the garden path, faces aglow with green paint, extorting us out of fun-size Snickers bars. And in fairness, we took our own kids trick-or-treating too, which they enjoyed hugely, although for some reason I always found it one of the least enjoyable of parental responsibilities, less satisfying than changing a soiled nappy and about as much fun.

The only laugh I can remember having was when our daughter, Eleanor, then five, told my mother, whose hearing is not what it was, that before she went trick-or-treating she was going to a Hallowe'en party. "A which party, dear?" said my mother. "Yes," said Eleanor.

Here in north Herefordshire, by contrast, the doorbell did not ring once on 31 October. So what does all this tell us? Perhaps that old English traditions are faring better in the countryside than in the city, where they are being supplanted, in the case of trick-or-treating, by Americana. Mind you, I wouldn't want to add grist to the mill of the British National Party, whose revolting freesheet, claiming that it is easier to cling on to Englishness in rural areas, was cheerfully handed out at the Liberty and Livelihood march in September. It doesn't diminish your Englishness to see, let's say, the Hindu festival of Diwali or the Jewish Chanukah celebrations around you; it enriches you as a human-being. And round here such riches are in short supply. But none of that went through my mind on Saturday while I stood suppressing a tear at "Silent Night".

As for the culture of trick-or-treating, I suppose it also has much to do with quantities of children. There aren't many kids round here, and I wouldn't expect Robert from the parish council and Roger from the King's Head to turn up at our front door with goblin masks on.

Carol singing, however, is a perfectly acceptable adult practice. We might even join them next year, or at least invite them in for a glass of sherry and a mince pie each. We would have asked them all in on Saturday, but didn't think we could make the pheasant casserole stretch 20 more ways.

I hate cards that are off-message

Christmas, it occurs to me, is a time of robust attitudes. "But Mum, I HATE Brussels sprouts." "Will someone PLEASE help me put all this wrapping paper into a binbag?" "I can't BEAR charades." "How COULD you buy me this blouse in XXL?" That kind of thing. I even have one or two strong opinions myself about the festive season. For example, I think that if we have to send cards to each other, they should be charity cards, with a proportion of the sale going to Oxfam, or cancer research, or the NSPCC, or whatever. Those who don't send charity cards should be force-fed sprouts until they pop.

My other bugbear is the circular letter, the round robin, call it what you will. To get away with sending those things you should either be American, or have something truly fascinating to relate about your past year, and preferably both. We have had an exciting 2002 by most standards, moving to the sticks after 15 years of living in the city, but I wouldn't deem it worthy of a round robin. Those I care about already know, and the others don't have to know. So why do people I haven't seen in a decade think I might be remotely interested in the fact that in May they had the outside of the house painted? It utterly defeats me.

And there is an even worse phenomenon: the unbearably smug, considerably-richer-than-you round robin, of which we get one every Christmas, from an old friend I haven't seen in years. To be fair to him, I think his wife writes it, but even so, they should both be ashamed of themselves. In fact, they should save themselves the trouble of thinking back to how many cars/houses/boats they bought in 2002, and just despatch lots of photocopies of their latest bank statement. Anyway, now I've got that off my chest, Jane points out that some people might think of this column as a gloating round robin, in weekly form, conveying the message that country life is best. Yikes! Might they? It's certainly true that we love living in Docklow, but heaven knows there are things we miss about London, and things we could do without here, not to mention the financial black hole into which we seem to be plummeting, what with the cost of re-wiring, re-guttering, re-painting and re-just about everything else our house needs after decades of neglect. I don't want to depress you, or myself, on Boxing Day, but I thought I should set matters straight.

Knotty solution

The scarcity round here of shops selling desirable bits of utter nonsense, which abound so in north London and solve many Christmas-present quandaries, forced us to do almost all our present-buying this year either online or by mail order. But I should add that, without Roger Plant, we would still have struggled. Roger is a friend of our neighbour, Will, and is a dab hand, possibly the only hand, at making pencils out of twigs.

Big, little, knotty, gnarled, oak, maple, birch – rare is the twig from which Roger cannot make a lovely pencil, and he then tastefully sears the owner's name into it. Each of our children has one of Roger's twig-pencils, and he has made more for us to give to the kids who are staying in our holiday cottages over New Year. Roger's e-mail address, if you're interested, is roger@twigpencils.co.uk.