Christmas Day in London dawns with an unusual stillness. For many, it’s a day of family, festive cheer, and the warmth of home. But for some, like a 22-year-old employee at a well-known fast food chain, it’s a shift like any other – albeit one with a distinctly surreal atmosphere. Walking to work in the pre-dawn quiet, the city feels deserted, almost post-apocalyptic. This young worker describes the silence as a gift, a stark contrast to the usual London bustle, evoking scenes from a zombie film where the world has paused. This quiet solitude is a fitting prelude to the unique day about to unfold at one of the many Fast Food Food Places that remain open, even on Christmas.
The decision for a fast food restaurant to open on Christmas Day rests with individual store managers, creating a patchwork of availability across the city. For employees like John, a colleague mentioned in the original account, Christmas shifts can become a recurring event, blurring into years of holiday work. For our narrator, volunteering for the Christmas shift isn’t a hardship. Christmas isn’t a major holiday for their family, making the day a chance for solitude and, perhaps, a little extra pay. This pragmatic approach highlights a reality for many in the service industry: holidays can be just another workday.
Arriving at the fast food food place, the morning routine is familiar – restocking condiments, cleaning tables, ensuring everything is ready for the trickle of customers to come. There’s a sense of camaraderie amongst the small skeleton crew working. Headphones in, jackets zipped high against the December chill, they share coffee and quiet jokes, united in their shared Christmas workday. The atmosphere is different; rules feel looser, supervision lighter. There’s an unspoken understanding of shared experience, a small group carving out a non-traditional Christmas within the fluorescent-lit confines of their fast food workplace.
The customer base on Christmas Day is an eclectic mix, far removed from the usual lunch rush crowd. Loners seeking warmth and company, individuals with nowhere else to go, and even those who have perhaps indulged a little too much in festive spirits – they all find their way to these fast food food places. Counterintuitively, medical professionals and hotel staff, seeking a break from their own holiday duties, also appear. The usual tourist throngs are absent, replaced by a different demographic, creating a peculiar social microcosm within the restaurant.
Last year, the employee recounts a memory of a family arriving and placing an unusually large order. While the family was cheerful, the scene struck a slightly melancholic chord. It raised a question: is a fast food food place truly where one should spend Christmas Day? Despite serving festive specials, the orders themselves are standard fare. Some customers simply order coffee, perhaps seeking just a brief respite or a sense of normalcy amidst an unusual day. The employee muses that staying home, warm, and enjoying a traditional Christmas meal is likely a better option for most.
However, there are small perks to a Christmas shift. The quiet periods allow for staff to play their own music, filling the usually bustling space with sounds of Stormzy or Frank Ocean. The sound system, normally lost in the daytime noise, becomes noticeable, a small joy in the stillness. Ultimately, the Christmas Day shift at this fast food food place is described as surprisingly similar to any other day, but with a lighter workload. And for some, that’s precisely why they choose to be there, working amidst the quiet hum of a very different kind of Christmas Day.
