My mother died in December 1996. Her funeral was on Christmas Eve; I doubt it was straightforward for my father to find a church that had time and space, but he did. The Christmas stockings were filled the next morning, too.

So I have some knowledge of what does or does not ruin Christmas.

So I've been perplexed by our national obsession with "saving Christmas". It's not at all clear to me that we are getting things right re the restrictions. But what is abundantly clear is that none of these judgements should depend on proximity to December 25th.

I've explained my thinking a bit more here: https://www.ft.com/content/adca44f4-cdc6-446f-a25f-28871734f9d8