Here’s an article from late November, but I heard on the TV many interviews where they were talking about it. It was a mixture or getting Christmas revenue and people not feeling Christmas was being taken away.
From the article:
Sources say the plans are expected to be announced next week and will see households able to mix from December 22 and 28.
Church services will be able to go ahead as well, with restrictions currently only allowing religious buildings to remain open for private prayer only expected to be lifted allowing Christmas Day services to be held.
The hospitality sector will be able to open up again in this time, in a much need boost to the British economy.
But this lifting of restrictions may come at a price, it has been warned.
Public Health England (PHE) suggested that for every one day of relaxed restrictions, the UK would need an extra five days of tighter rules.
So if these plans to cancel the rules between December 22 and 28 come to fruition, this could mean more than a month of tighter regulations – 35 days in fact.
Then a few weeks later in December they were warning to be much stricter even during Christmas. My guess is people had already started shopping a lot and doing Christmas parties and the virus was already back on the move.