New Years Resolutions for the TV Guide

Out on the bleak horizon of Rosh Hashanah television programming stands a lone silhouette on the rim of a crater. He's waving a flag.

It's semaphore.

"This Rosh Hashanah watch It’s a Wonderful Life!"

"You're out of your mind!" you declare.

He's waving madly. "Frank Capra! James Stewart. Donna Reed!"

"But you're having us on!" you bawl. "That's staple Christmas Day afternoon matinee programming! On the Jewish New Year? "

But the inaudible call from the wilderness persists, unflappable, insisting that the order of the day should be; yes watch this Christmas Day fodder. Especially on Rosh Hashanah!

Incredulous? Then let me intercede.

Rosh Hashanah is coming up over there and over here. It's only days away. And as it gets indelibly closer, at least over here, a change takes us over. The intractably hot Levant night becomes clement. Our obsessive, stiff-necked, all encompassing, all-mitigating, primordial competitiveness gives way, yielding to a spirit of clemency.

For me the vehicle of that spirit is the greeting card. For eleven and a half months a year we feel commanded to thrash about for that promotion or commission. But as the New Year approaches I start trawling the internet for free ECards and YouTube clips. Feelers sprout from my caustic crust and recognize human demeanour. A smile creeps across the faces of Jerusalemites like Triffids' tendrils. Cell phones are inundated with well meaning text messages and email accounts are swamped with blessings. Everyone's sending out greetings like its a Nato Tactical Broadcast. Its all Happy New Year! and wishing you an Easy Fast. I could be as cynical about it as Ebenezer Scrooge but the bizarre thing is that we mean it.

If all that doesn't remind you of the famous old Seasons Greetings well I say Bah, Humbug! 

Rosh Hashanah may be significant in lots of different ways but amongst others it heralds the Festivals; the Days of Awe, Yom Kippur, Succoth, school break. Productivity in Israel grinds to a halt for the best part of a month, a bit like France in August, a bit like Australia over the Christmas, Boxing Day, New Years, school holidays break. Either way it's not all anathema.     

When I was in high school Christmas was always the best beach day of the year. Scarborough Beach was almost deserted, with a light easterly blowing across the turquoise sea and the perky little breakers glassy. As I got older and moved out of home the yuletide came to mean piss ups right through Christmas Eve, Boxing Day and New Years. But it wasn't all depravity. There was the nativity scene. For an entire week Chris and me made a sort of stand up collage out of cut up cardboard and Woman’s Weekly magazines and Anna nearly blew a fuse having to do all the cleaning and cooking by herself for the Christmas party we were having. And then I remember the first time I got Christmas presents. I nearly died from embarrassment. Firstly I was blown away that anyone would buy me anything, but as a consequence it never occurred to me to get anyone else anything either. Christmas prezzies were totally removed from our family traditions. And then there was the Christmas party where I discovered the deceptive potency of gin, keeling over, off the armchair’s arm, not shifting an inch from my sitting foetal position, bang onto my head, like a Michael Leunig cartoon. Isaac Newton, eat your heart out .  

I never did see It's a Wonderful Life on Christmas. Either the replays of A Christmas Carol or the lure of the perfect beach day kept me away from the television. It was only by some miracle that I finally did see it on the telly whilst grieving the loss of my first great love. (as opposed to my first loss of love. But that’s between me and my therapist.) Maybe I should say infatuation? But that was some than 30 years ago. A lot of water has flown under the angel Clarence's bridge in Bedford Falls since then.

I won't go into the movie too much. I don't want to spoil it for you.

And as for the fundamentalists amongst you who might be aghast at the possibility of screening a movie on Rosh Hashanah with all and sundry decorating a Christmas tree I'll say this much. By the time you get to the end of the movie you’ll be crying so hard, you won’t even notice the Christmas tree. And if you’re not crying, then you’re a psychopath. You probably don't cry at the end of Pinocchio either. So poke yourself in the eyes; and pretend that they’re decorating the Arc and blowing the shofar. It won't affect the gist of the movie anyway.

p.s. If you do see this great ol' movie, then you’ll understand what I mean when in this season of approaching elections, wherever you are, I say: good government is about upward social mobility for all the decent people making a decent effort, and sales pitches are about making a commission, and let’s hope the elections bring us closer to Bedford Falls than to Pottersville.