Indeed, I suspect most people in America would think it faintly unseemly to imbibe anything more than, say, a small sherry before lunch on Christmas Day. So when, on 25 December, Mom brings out another turkey, you don’t go, “Turkey! YIPPEEE!” but rather, “Ah, turkey again is it, Mother?” Under such an arrangement Christmas dinner is bound to come as an anticlimax.Also, Americans don’t drink much at Christmas, as a rule. Thanksgiving is a great holiday – probably the very best holiday in America, if you ask me. (In case you’ve always wondered, it commemorates the first harvest feast at which the pilgrims sat down with the Indians to thank them for all their help and tell them: “Oh, and by the way, we’ve decided we want the whole country.”) It is a great holiday because you don’t have to give gifts or send cards or do anything but eat until you begin to look like a balloon that has been left on a helium machine too long.The trouble is that it comes less than a month before Christmas. To begin with, in Britain – or at least in England – you still pretty much pack all your festive excesses (eating, drinking, gift-giving, more eating and drinking) into Christmas, whereas we in America spread ours out over three separate holidays.In America, the big eating holiday is Thanksgiving, at the end of November.

Now, alas, they appear to be gone for good.Even so, Christmas in Britain is wonderful, far better than in America, and for all kinds of reasons. In Anglo-Saxon times, according to Crippen, it was customary for someone offering a drink to say “Wassail!” and for the recipient to respond “Drinkhail!” and for the participants to repeat the exercise until comfortably horizontal.It is clear from Crippen’s tome that in 1923 this and many other agreeable Christmas customs were still commonly encountered in Britain. Nor, while we are at it, did I encounter any mumming, still less any hodening (a kind of organised group begging for coins with a view to buying drinks at the nearest public house, which I think is an outstanding idea), or many of the other traditions of an English Christmas that were expressly promised in the lyrics of carols and the novels of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.It wasn’t until I happened on a copy of TG Crippen’s scholarly and ageless Christmas and Christmas Lore, published in London in 1923, that I finally found that wassail was originally a salutation From the Old Norse ves heil, it means “in good health”. In fact, in nearly 20 years in England I never did find anyone who had ever gone a-wassailing, at least not knowingly. In my house, the most exciting thing you could hope for in the way of seasonal recklessness was being offered a cookie shaped like a Christmas tree.
So you may conceive my disappointment when my first Christmas in England came and went and, not only was there no wassailing to be seen, but no one I quizzed was any the wiser as to its arcane and venerable secrets. Given the perky lilt of the carol and the party spirit in which it was always sung, it suggested to my youthful imagination rosy-cheeked wenches bearing flagons of ale in a scene of general merriment and abandon before a blazing yule log in a hall decked with holly – and, with this in mind, I looked forward to my first English Christmas with a certain frank anticipation. ONE OF the many small mysteries I hoped to resolve when I first moved to England was this: when British people sang “A-Wassailing We’ll Go”, where was it they went, and what exactly did they do when they got there?

Throughout an American upbringing I heard this song every Christmas without ever finding anyone who had the faintest idea of how to go about the obscure and enigmatic business of wassailing.

Call 0645 830232 if you have had a problem with a product, or 0645 830234 if you have had a problem with a service.Compiled by the authors of `Women Unlimited: The Directory for Life’ published by Penguin, pounds 9.99. If you discover that any products are not year 2000-compatible, get in touch with your retailer.Further informationThe Consumers Association would be interested to know if you have experienced any problems with products or services as a result of the millennium bug. By setting the clock to roll from 1999 to 2000 you can see if it recognises the date change.The Action 2000 website www.bug2000.co.uk. lists the top 100 software packages for personal computers and tells you how they might be affected. However, if your heating broke down and your pipes froze and burst, they would probably meet the cost of repair, because burst pipes could not have been predicted, but it is best to phone them and check.Travel insurance should be checked closer to 2000 to cover against delays, lost luggage or cancellations.The “home check!” pack from Action 2000 gives instructions on how to check the internal clock on certain products in your home such as VCRs. It will be seen as the manufacturer’s responsibility to insure that their products are millennium-compliant. Speak to your insurance company if you are concerned and check if they have any exclusions, as these may start to appear in 1999.