Christmas Future

I realise that this is a little premature, but there is so much admin to get through these days – scanning the internet, matching gift and price with impecunious aunt and miserly cousin, making allowance for the additional time involved in shipping deliveries without lorry drivers that means that you will not know that something is out of stock until some time in March, not to mention the simple logistics of finding somebody with an open fire who is prepared to let you shove your note up their chimney in the certain knowledge that it might play merry hell with their flue. You may be well ahead of me, but my Christmas planning starts here:

First on everybody’s list of things to do before ‘the day’ is the traditional visit to ‘Ye Olde German Xmas Fayre and Market’ in the only town in the county without a single car parking space and a train station that stands a two-hour yomp from your destination. The burning disappointment of this event is a seasonal rite of passage as fundamental to the occasion as kneeling on the glass baubles and attempting to get the dog to cough up the turkey wishbone. You will be surrounded by so many desperate people that you will not notice that your credit card has gone missing until you attempt to use your absent mobile phone in order to report the drunken Santa for swearing loudly at the Elves. Fortunately, this state of penury will insulate you against the temptation to buy hand-made penis-shaped Christmas baubles, felt Santa hats with flashing lights, a novelty scarf that plays ‘I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus’ and which unravels before you reach the nearest bin, gluhwein that both looks and tastes like drain cleaner and a hot dog that is only one of the two – and that isn’t hot. Female toilet arrangements that involve a single portaloo and a queue that would take a week to clear even if the flush was working. Male arrangements that involve a bush. By the time you manage to find your way out of the yuletide melee, you will have sore feet, three full squirts of tomato ketchup down your crotch and the conviction that the withered Christmas Special turkey ‘n’ bread sauce bap at the Rat & Cockle is maybe not so bad after all. The bottom will have fallen out of your bag for life, the flicker will have gone out of your L.E.D candle and the sparkle in your eye will have been caused by a faulty glitter canon and will require four hours in Casualty to get it removed. YOGXF&M is traditionally held at the beginning of November and may be cancelled if the weather is not perfect e.g. cold and raining. It is no place for children. The pall of shattered-illusion hanging over the event will be visible from Mars.
Second on the list is the traditional trip to Poundland in the search for gifts for all the people you do not like but who always insist on sending you something inappropriate for Christmas. It is best to choose something that will not survive unwrapping as it cannot then be re-parcelled and sent to you next year. Remember that in most cases, the packaging will be far more robust than the contents. Cheap chocolate is always an acceptable gift, especially for diabetic friends, who will have the perfect excuse for not touching it. This can also be a suitable occasion on which to purchase a whole pack of Christmas Crackers that do not ‘crack’ and feature a range of gifts all of which will result in a trip to A&E with the baby, and a joke that didn’t quite survive the translation from Taiwanese.
Update your Christmas Card List. Begin by crossing out all of the people who did not send you a card last year, all of those with whom you have agreed not to exchange cards, all of those who you have completely forgotten ever having known and all of those who laughed when your knickers fell down in the Parent’s Sack race at last summer’s school sports day. Do not attempt to personalise the message in each card as it will only lead to confusion when the cards are placed in the wrong envelope for delivery to a thirteen years out-of-date address. Leave them in the box with the intention of getting them in the post before the last posting day. Throw them in the bin when you next find them in April.
Prepare the sprouts. Christmas sprouts require at least eight weeks cooking before they go in the bin.
Plan the Christmas Menu. Don’t forget the practicalities: how big a turkey can you fit in the oven; how big a turkey can you fit in the bath when it hasn’t defrosted by Christmas Eve; why do the pigs always throw the blankets off during cooking; why does grandad always manage to get a cocktail stick wedged under his top set? Properly planned (e.g. ordered through ‘Just Eat’) Christmas dinner can be a stress-free experience. Lock anyone with whom you may have a difference of opinion out of the kitchen – or preferably the house – and never attempt to follow grandma’s traditional recipe for anything: it is a doomed enterprise and the recriminations will persist for years. If you plan to set fire to the pudding make sure that Uncle Derek has insured his wig.
Write down – or preferably print so that there can be no mistakes – your own Christmas Gift List. Include all makes and specifications. Do not be vague. ‘A nice perfume’ in the hands of a vindictive aunt may well be something with which you would strip down pine furniture. ‘A box of chocolates’ will have a petrol station price ticket and a sell by date from the 1980’s. If you want a bottle of gin that hasn’t come out of an enamel bath in a disused car battery factory state the make. Include a number of inexpensive alternatives, but not so many that your spouse can get away with buying one.
Take all necessary steps to eliminate stress. Sell the cat, farm the kids out to relations, feign illness and, if at all possible, move without leaving a forwarding address.
Do not buy in so much alcohol that you think it safe to start drinking it beforehand, but also do not be tempted by last year’s advocaat. It may look innocuous, but at heart it is twelve month old custard with a garnish of British Sherry.
Find blanket to pull over head until second week of January.

The Ghost of Christmas Past – Christmas Dinner

xmas dinner — Photo by Amelie & Niklas Ohlrogge on Unsplash

The highlight of Christmas Day in the UK (after the seasonal TV ‘special’ Stars In Their Eyes, featuring pets of the rich and famous, and Susan Boyle singing a novelty version of ‘We Three Kings’ especially written for her by Richard Stilgoe) is the Great British Christmas Dinner, and it is this repast upon which this piece will focus as, to be brutally honest, I simply do not know what is eaten elsewhere in the world, although I would be delighted to hear, should anyone wish to fill me in.

The traditional Christmas Dinner contains sufficient calories to see the average Blue Whale through the winter, but it does not usually begin with any form of appetizer as most celebrants are already stuffed to the gills with candied fruit, chocolate covered nuts, mince pies, sausage rolls, buck’s fizz, cream sherry, glacé cherries and eggnog by the time they sit to eat. It is entirely normal for over-imbibed members of the family to have to be woken in order to be brought to the table, whereupon they immediately fall asleep in the chestnut stuffing and dribble gently into the gravy.

At this early stage, instead of eating, the Christmas crackers are usually pulled. The ‘crack’ associated with these sparkly seasonal tubes will inevitably make the babies scream and the elderly momentarily lose control of their bladders. Disagreements over the ‘prizes’ in the crackers, and whose flew where, may persist well into the New Year. The wise host will have a carrier bag full of crap with which to pacify the disaffected. The contents of the cracker usually consists of a paper crown which splits into two as soon as you attempt to put it on your head; a plastic novelty that flies across the room, ricochets from head and ornament before settling somewhere unseen, where it remains lost until a week later when it is sucked up with 3cwt of pine-needles and a half-eaten coffee-cream which jams the Hoover, having smeared itself over a six foot strip of mushroom shagpile. Finally, there is a joke, written, I believe, by a robot in Taiwan, which proves beyond doubt that there will never be an AI comedian. Never-the-less, it is not considered good manners to begin the meal until everybody has had the opportunity to read out their joke – even if a packing malfunction at the factory has resulted in everybody having the same one.

The traditional ‘bird’ of Christmas Dinner is, I think the goose, but this has now been firmly superseded by the turkey, due largely to its greater post-Christmas adaptability in sandwich, curry and rissole. Henry the Eighth, it is said, was the first person to eat Christmas turkey in the UK and, looking at some of the sandwiches in the shops around this time of the year, the same bird is still doing the rounds. It is traditional to concur, when taking one’s first mouthful, that it is a bit dry and ask for more gravy. As a non-meat eater, I will traditionally be asked at this point if I would like some ham.
Christmas Dinner is, in effect, a standard Sunday Roast with knobs on, separated from ‘the normal’ by volume and accoutrement:
• Brussel Sprouts are, for many people, a once-a-year veg. Traditionally boiled for approximately three weeks before the day and hidden under the table during the meal.
• Bread Sauce – follows the English tradition of taking something relatively bland and stodgy and transforming it into something even blander and stodgier.
• Pigs in Blankets – pork sausage wrapped in bacon (so, more correctly Pigs in Pig, I would argue) presents the UK diner with the unique opportunity to accompany a meal with the sensation of inadvertently driving a cocktail stick through the hard palate and into the nasal cavity.
• Cranberry Sauce – this is most un-British, like having gravy on your pudding. Tolerated only on this one day of the year. For the rest of the year such gastronomic eccentricities are left to the French.
• Wine, both red and white may be served. Grandma, robbed of her mug of tea, will reluctantly agree to have a glass of port and lemonade (‘More lemonade than port, please. Well, perhaps just a splash more port…’), before falling to sleep and coughing her false teeth into the mash.

After the meal has been eaten, the plates have been cleared and the worst of it mopped off grandad’s shirt, comes the Christmas Pudding: the densest duff since Cnut. The glistening globe is placed, steaming, in the centre of the table before being doused in brandy and set alight, to shrieks of admiration from everyone around the table, except for grandma who has woken to find her hairpiece is on fire. The brandy soaked pudding is usually served with brandy butter, brandy sauce and brandy – or perhaps that’s just our house. In the past, the pudding would contain a silver sixpence, which the lucky finder would use to get their teeth fixed.

Only the hardiest of souls, and those desperate to avoid the washing up, will attempt to tackle the cheese and biscuits after all of this. Those wishing to have a cigar will be sent to the bottom of the garden as the smell makes Auntie Vera nauseous. Unfortunately, the bottom of the garden contains a compost heap that makes the smokers nauseous.

When the traditional moaning about who always gets landed with the washing up has subsided everyone settles down for an afternoon doze.

The first to wake opens the window and lets it out.

Originally posted 21st December 2019.

Christmas Dinner

When the traditional moaning about who always gets landed with the washing up has subsided everyone settles down for an afternoon doze.

The first to wake opens the window and lets it out.

I Believe In Father Christmas

father christmas

Come on, even in the short time that we have known one another, you and I, you must have realised that the very mention of Christmas was going to set me off on one. It is unfashionable, I think, to admit it but I still get excited by Christmas: the whole thing. The carol singers, the TV specials, the food, the drink, the panicky rush to the local petrol station for the last minute present, the never-ending trailers for this year’s Eastenders Christmas disaster… Well, perhaps not the TV trailers. I just can’t understand the desire to witness such unremitting melancholic disaster as the highlight of Christmas evening. The vicarious thrill of eavesdropping on an entire community of joyless and soulless characters as they plunge headlong into increasingly preposterous seasonal scenarios of calamity and bedlam is not, for me anyhow, any way to let the sprouts go down. I’ll take Eric and Ernie making breakfast together anytime, thank you very much.

So many people seem to want to be depressed by Christmas: ‘I can’t wait until it’s all over,’ ‘It’s such a lot of fuss for one day,’ ‘I don’t even like Christmas pudding…’ What is this nonsense? For a start, Christmas pudding, Christmas cake and mince pies are the three kings of the epicurean calendar and the greatest consumable inventions of all time: fact. I would buy mincemeat flavoured toothpaste if it was available. Everyone’s happy* – especially the maker’s of eggnog – and even the dourest of aunties will agree to wear a paper crown for the duration of the meal. When it is all over, you have 364 days to wait until the next one. Enjoy the day, embrace the mayhem. I know it’s overhyped, unnecessarily expensive and endlessly protracted, but come on! It’s once a year. As far as I’m concerned, the best Christmas present is Christmas. A sense of benign serenity pervades the house and will last all day, as long as nobody gets the Monopoly out.

What’s not to love?
• Hungry Hippos? Tick.
• Whoopee cushion on Aunty Elsie’s chair? Tick.
• Hugely inappropriate joke from Great Uncle Derek? Tick.

As for mawkish sentimentality – well, why not? Twenty first century life is completely hidebound by startling and grimly held reality: dreaming is something we are only allowed to do when we’re asleep. What’s wrong with allowing a little fantasy into our lives from time to time?

So, does Father Christmas actually exist? Well, why would I choose not to believe in something that brings so much joy to so many? Father Christmas exists in spirit. That spirit itself may exist for just a few hours each year, but as long as it is here I will embrace it and yes, I do believe in Father Christmas.

I have actually, in the past, ‘played’ Father Christmas for the village children in my Father-in-Law’s pub on Christmas day. I have to tell you, it is not a job for those of weak disposition. I was prepared for all of the children who wanted to pull my beard. I was prepared for all of the children who wanted the opportunity to complain about what I had brought them that morning (or even what I’d brought them the previous year). I was even prepared for the sinisterly whispered, ‘I know who you are really…’ I was not prepared for all of the children who wanted to kick my shins.

We are asked to believe in so many things for which there is no proof. Most of them are intended to constrain or control us. God knows, millions have died for some of them. I believe that Jesus existed. I believe that he was a very great man whose life has impacted on millions for centuries. But a virgin birth? No, surely not. The whole Christmas story is a metaphor isn’t it: a fable become lore – either that or a very cynical ploy by the manufacturers of hand-made wooden cribs and personalised Christmas tree decorations. To be honest, after some of his frankly appallingly vengeful behaviour in the Old Testament, I think God had probably been spoken to by somebody from PR before setting off on the New Testament. A story of love and hope and peace and joy; just what we need at Christmas time.

Of course, as with all major undertakings, planning and preparation are the keys to a successful operation. Allow me to talk you through some of my own basic preparations for the big day:
1. Miracle on 34th Street (the Richard Attenborough version). If you need proof that Father Christmas really does exist, it is right here. Settle down with a glass of something seasonal, a warm mince pie, a little stilton and watch this film. I defy you to leave it without feeling the spirit. (And by the way, just for the record, Christmas did exist before Prosecco.)
2. Love Actually. I know, I know, and frankly I don’t care. I could watch this twice a week and it would still warm me cockles. A must for the pre-Christmas run-in. Christmas is not Christmas without an in-depth discussion of what’s the best bit of this film. (It’s the Colin Firth/Lucia Moniz bit, by the way.)
3. A trip to the supermarket to purchase several hundred-weight of snack foods and any number of bottles of sweet alcoholic beverages that would not be allowed through the door at any other time of the year. Sweet British sherry is produced for this single occasion alone: along with Advocaat and those little marzipan fruits, it has no purpose other than to keep the (more) elderly relatives quiet during the afternoon session of Charades. Nothing grates quite like an over-lubricated Great Aunt yelling ‘Casablanca’ to every single mime, especially when nobody else is getting your superb rendition of ‘Oops… I Did It Again’ by Britney Spears.

Drinking the overlarge tot of whisky and eating the mince pie left out for Santa remains my final Christmas Eve task (Santa does not like sherry at our house). No carrot to nibble on behalf of Rudolph these days – he can fend for himself. Every year the startling realisation that, by a process I do not fully understand, somebody has bought and prepared everything for Christmas lunch and dinner. I’m not sure who. The Pixies I think… And then one last check of the night sky:
• Giant airborne sleds? No.
• The unmistakable glistening of snow in the air? No.
• Superbright star on the eastern horizon? No.
…and so to bed.

Christmas morning, I usually wake at about 5am. When they were at home I used to creep into the children’s rooms and try to make just enough noise to wake them. Oh the joy of seeing their little faces as they looked at the clock before burying their heads under the duvet. I am certain that both of my children learned to tell the time simply so that they could tell me to go back to bed on Christmas morning. But I’m up – no point in going back to bed now. Christmas jumper, Christmas shirt and Christmas socks: it’s the one time of the year when everybody else is just as badly dressed as me.

Christmas dinner is a big deal in our house. Crackers are cracked, paper hats are worn and terrible jokes are read. The lighting of the Christmas pudding is a ritual that cannot be missed. It usually comes directly after the mass panicky dash by the assembled adults towards one of this year’s high chair incumbents who, with some encouragement, manages to cough up half a sprout, two carrot sticks and a red Lego brick. A spirit of benevolent bonhomie pervades even in the midst of the communal clear-up and dishwashing that follows the meal. The dregs of the wine are consumed, perhaps a small coffee and Bailey’s, and then for many the mass, slack-jawed snooze of Christmas afternoon, whilst the rest of us (me and the kids) construct Lego housing estates or attempt to disentangle the new mini drone from the light fitting without fusing the rest of the street. Sometime later, everybody wakes for the afternoon ritual of ‘Oh look at the time. We’ve missed the Queen.’ And ‘who’s putting the kettle on?’

The rest of the day is filled with the welcome drifting in and out of various members of our joyfully expanding family. Every available chair, pouffe and footstool is utilised. As the afternoon draws into evening, people are routinely stepped on, sat on and, if certain members of the family are having a nap, dribbled on. Board games are begun and almost immediately dismantled by children who crawl through them, sit on them, fly a Lego rocket through them or otherwise decimate them because they are being ignored. Everyone, except grandad, who has just evaded a very large snake and reached the top of an equally long ladder, thinks that it’s funny. Come the evening and anything that is vaguely soft becomes a crib. All rooms are occupied by people sleeping on beds and mattresses, on inflatables and floors in a selection of duvets, blankets and sleeping bags, many of which have not seen the light of day since Glastonbury 2004.

Anyway, that’s Christmas for me, and a joyous occasion it always is, until, of course, I turn on the news on Boxing Day and discover that the world is still in exactly the same mess as we left it in on Christmas Eve – and a whole new year to look forward to…

Oh well, Merry Christmas One and All.

*Not totally true, I know. This is a very lonely time for lonely people. Nobody chooses to be lonely yet loneliness could be the future for any of us. It’s easy to ignore the future as you get older; there is a lot less of it and the end of it is quite a lot closer than it was. If you get the chance, then making somebody less lonely could be one of the best presents you could ever give yourself.