The tricky challenge of Whamageddon: a first Christmas without Last Christmas

Whamageddon.

You may have reached the third Saturday of our final month blissfully unaware of this latest mangled assault on the English language. This is the latest Social Media trend of 2018. If you’re still interested, the rules are as follows:

Try to avoid hearing Wham!’s Last Christmas.

That’s essentially it. No covers, or remixes, or someone sticking the track on near you out of pure malice (if they were truly malicious, they’d play Justin Bieber’s Mistletoe). If you can experience festive radio, television, city centre shopping and hold out on hearing George Michael saving his beloved from tears, you’ve done well. Once you’re out the game, you post #whamageddon on your Social Media as the song has tracked you down in the manner of Tommy Lee Jones setting his sights on Harrison Ford.

Or you could log off, and save yourself from tears, and give your attention to something special.

Last Christmas could be the most powerful festive hit for capturing the melancholy nature of the month. Or certainly the saddest since Bing Crosby sang I’ll Be Home for Christmas for overseas soldiers in 1943. Like George Michael, David Essex and Elvis have been dumped. Jona Lewie is in the snow while his girlfriend is in a nuclear fall-out zone. (Could happen) East 17 have lost a loved one. Bing Crosby is wistful about a lack of snow, or David Bowie’s just turned up at his house and, unlike you, forgotten his lambswool golf attire. Chris Rea is stuck in a traffic jam. Shane McGowan is in the drunk tank. (Uncharitable types might wonder what made December stand out from all Shane’s other months). Chris De Burgh sings his song from out in space but, most heartbreaking of all, remains resolutely Chris de Burgh.

The second season without George Michael around adds to the poignancy of the Wham! hit.

It’s a tribute to the work of George Michael (as it does for Noddy Holder and Roy Wood) that their music now nestles alongside Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts and Felix Mendelssohn in the repertoire of charity carol singers.

It puts one in mind of other cultural phenomena in this particular month against which anyone would do well to fight.

Backstopageddon, JohnLewisageddon (avoiding drippy cover versions of ‘80s hits on adverts and trails for TV dramas) and Problematicageddon (endless debates about the lyrics of Baby It’s Cold Outside and The Fairytale of New York being declared culturally verboten by people who perhaps misunderstand the idea that because something is ‘problematic’ for them, it doesn’t necessitate a ‘problematic’ status for everyone who isn’t them).

My own personal experience saw a 90 minute drive accompanied by Magic Christmas (Magic FM playing non-stop Christmas hits), December shopping on the seventh level triangle  of Hades also known as Oxford Street, Regent Street  and Tottenham Court Road and buying a tree at Homebase. It was two hours and ten minutes into an office Christmas lunch on the 12th when the faint sound of a glockenspiel heralding the start of the “once bitten, twice shy” finally broke me.

Negotiating December without Last Christmas is trickier than the Mistral Straight chicane on Paul Ricard. You’re more likely to survive the month as the leader of a European superpower.

If you’ve reached this stage without encountering Last Christmas, congratulations. You’ve probably been online shopping and listening to Radio 3 in the mornings. Or your breakfast soundtrack has been Radio 4, in which case, commiserations.