He was old. He felt old. They looked at him and saw “old”. They humoured him when he talked about Christmas past, appointment TV, tentpole campaigns, iconic ads. He tried to explain the idea of something that everyone watched and talked about. He tried to paint a picture of millions seeing and talking about the same thing. He tried to get over the idea of a cultural moment. They humoured him. They smiled sweetly and went back to their own views: a perfectly composed Christmas story, a personalised myth spun from their data points. “I love Christmas,” they all agreed.