Frankie & Benny #6 – Christmas

“Ah Benny, Merry Christmas old chum.  Come in, come in and slip off your shoes.  Your slippers are by the fire and your breakfast sherry is by the toast.”
“Breakfast sherry?  Excuse me for saying so Francis my friend, but is it not traditional to drink Bucks Fizz on Christmas morning – fine Champagne and freshly squeezed orange juice – and not cheap British sherry from a milk bottle?”
“It may well be Benny, it may well be, but only in the kind of circles that can live with the fact that a litre of pasteurised orange juice is twice the price of a pint of draught sherry and the nearest the local mini-mart has to fine Champagne is warm Lucozade.  If you are worried about your health, I can put some roughage in the sherry for you: I’ve just burned the toast, I can scrape it into your glass if you’d like.”
“Don’t get angry Frankie – you’ll burn the eggs as well – you know full well that we like to push the boundaries you and I.  We may well set the trend.  Within a year or two the landed toffs will be sending the faithful old family retainer down to the corner shop on Christmas Eve saying ‘Here’s a tenner.  Bring us back a bottle of that sweet sherry with a picture of a stagecoach on the front and a couple of vacuum-packed kipper fillets if they’ve got them: the ones with a little pat of butter in.  Get yourself a pack of five Park Drive with the change and Merry Christmas Jeeves.  Make sure you’re back in plenty of time to stuff the turkey mind…’”
“‘…And give that orange juice and fizzy wine shite to the kitchen staff.  Let the chef cut the meat up first though, I don’t want thumb in my duff again.’  How do you want your bacon Benny, crispy or crispy?”
“Tradition dictates that it is crispy my friend, like the eggs and the tomatoes.  The black pudding, however, should still be frozen in the middle and the mushrooms left, forgotten in the fridge until New Year’s Eve.”
“And how do you like your fried slice these days, my Masterchef friend?”
“White or wholemeal?”
“White.”
“Crispy, able to withstand a sound dunking in tomato ketchup.  Shall I pour the sherry?”
“The cups are on the table.”
“Cups?  How very refined.  And they’re matching too – at least they both have handles.”
“Well you can’t have mugs, can you?  Not on Christmas Day.  Anyway, they’re still in the sink from yesterday.  I’ll wash them for the wine at dinner.”
“We’re having wine at dinner?”
“Of course.”
“What kind?”
“The cider kind.  The kind you buy in plastic two litre bottles and drink from a mug.”
“Lovely.”
“So have you brought the bird?”
“Yes, of course…  In a manner of speaking…”
“What kind of manner of speaking?  You have brought a bird haven’t you?”
“Well yes, in part, yes.”
“In part?”
“Legs, I’ve bought legs!  It’s all I could afford, but we’ve got two each.”
“Legs?  Where am I going to put the stuffing?”
“In the Yorkshire Pudding?”
“Yorkshire Pudding?  Who has Yorkshire Pudding with Christmas dinner?”
“They were on offer at the Co-op with a packet of Surprise Peas and a Mint Vienetta.”
“Then we shall stuff the Yorkshire Puddings and set fire to the Vienetta.  Cheers my friend.”
“Cheers…  You know I could quite get to like sherry and fried egg.”
“It’s like a deconstructed advocaat.”
“Lovely.  So, when shall we unwrap our presents then?”
“Unwrap our presents?”
“Yes, should we do it now, before lunch or after tea?”
“We always buy one another the same thing Benny, every Christmas, year after year: you buy me a bottle of cheap scotch and I buy you a bottle of cheap ruby wine, and we drink them both with a packet of cheese and onion crisps before falling asleep on the sofa with a mince pie each and two Gaviscon.”
“I know that, but it’s Christmas, we still have to unwrap our gifts.”
“I haven’t wrapped mine.”
“…Can’t you go and wrap it now?”
“In what?  Why?”
“In anything.  It’s the only thing I have to unwrap on Christmas day.  I’ve wrapped yours…”
“You have?”
“Of course.  Really colourful paper too: robins, snow, all that jazz.  It’s got the football results on the other side if you’re interested.”
“…I could put it in a bag.”
“What sort of bag?”
“Well, it’s not a bag exactly, it’s what the toilet rolls came in.  it’s got polar bears on it.”
“Ok.”
“If it means that much to you.”
“It does.”
“Fair enough.  I’ll do it while you prepare the sprouts.”
“Ok, we’ll clear the breakfast stuff and then we ought to have a bit of a check on the dinner.”
“It’s not a problem.  We’re all set: look, we have turkey legs…”
“…Chicken…”
“…We have chicken legs, frozen; Surprise Peas, frozen; Yorkshire Puddings, frozen; potatoes, tinned; carrots, tinned; stuffing, powdered; gravy, powdered…” 
“Do you think we really need sprouts?”
“They’re traditional.”
“Do you like them?”
“No.”
“Me neither.  I’ve got a tin of baked beans back at mine.”
“Then fetch them, after all, we thumb our noses at tradition don’t we?”
“We are at the vanguard.  We are the way forward.  We are the new normal…  When shall we have the marzipan fruits?”
“After the washing up?”
“Good idea.  I’ll put the kettle on.  If we’re having marzipan, we’ll need tea.”
“Oh yes, lovely.”
“Merry Christmas, my friend.”
“Merry Christmas…”

Merry Christmas one and all! I’ll see you on the other side…