17 days for Christmas is an awful lot, but that's no bad thing

Brits work hard enough as it is, there's no shame in taking a few days off the hamster wheel to eat and drink ourselves mery

Santa’s blotto: in every city and town, festive revellers like these in Bath will be enjoying (or maybe not) a Christmas drink in the street (Getty Images)

I counted them all out – but when will I count them back again? They were on the Tube last Friday afternoon, heading to King’s Cross, Paddington; some of them to Heathrow. There they were, sporting winter coats on a balmy day, suitcases and wrapping paper; quite frankly looking smug. Who? The 17-day Christmas breakers, that’s who.

I don’t really subscribe to the notion that we Brits are a lazy bunch. I think it’s a lazy statement in itself, often directed at us by Americans fearful of taking their paltry two weeks’ vacation or Asians, infused – no matter what tabloids tell you - with the true immigrant ethos of unrelenting hard work.

However, every Christmas, I start to wonder. As “the (shopping) season” spreads ever earlier into October, the switch-off period at work kicks in from mid-December. It’s as if we’ve all started to take the La Liga winter break.

From early December onwards, earnest PA’s arrange meetings in their bosses’ diaries for January suggesting everyone is busy until Christmas. Busy doing what? Socialising under the guise of work, of course.

I exclude people who work in retail or bars, restaurants and hotels. For those who do, I know the pace is relentless right through into the New Year. Once upon a time that was me - in Allders of Croydon or Next, Exeter, and working in assorted bars and restaurants in central London.

If Noddy Holder on that festive audio loop a dozen times a day wasn’t bad enough, the boorish behaviour of increasingly desperate shoppers or dead-eyed drinkers was enough to tip us over the edge. Only the camaraderie of colleagues kept us sane; the knowledge that we were all in it together, being on the receiving end of the frantic rudeness that sometimes spilled over into abuse. My respect to you.

And then suddenly, after the drink-induced mayhem of “Mad” Thursday and “Black-Eyed” Friday when late lunches linger until late-night trains; suddenly on so-called “Panic” Saturday all seemed calmer. It was less panic than resignation. The streets were already clearing and there were Ubers a-plenty.

There are two ways of looking at this. One can get all puritanical towards the big break, tut over UK productivity and fret about the GDP. Or, one can step outside our hamster-wheel madness and reflect that perhaps it is better for the collective soul that we switch off for a fortnight and watch back-to-back Star Wars Films.

Across the rest of our year, there’s no Utopian 35-hour French working week (with all of July off.) We don’t have a giant mid-August Ferragosto shutdown like the Italians, nor a daily siesta like the Spanish. Instead, we choose the deepest, darkest winter weeks to sit inside and stuff ourselves into food comas and reacquaint ourselves with that Baileys bottle from 2013.

This year, I’m not going to judge. Each to their own. My years of working Christmas Day are currently behind me – but I will work until Christmas Eve, unsure if there will be anyone to call or email. I will do it, in good cheer, because most of all, it’s my choice and so many of you out there don’t have that choice. So, whether you’re working, or slobbing around in front of Carry On films this week, Merry Christmas to you all.