A Christmas Carol: Boxing Day

Boxing Day. The detritus from The Big Day is still about (even if you’ve been very particular about clearing up the wrapping paper).

The fridge: the leftovers. The paper hats and bits of crackers. The little drifts of new items that don’t yet have homes (particularly if you’ve been staying at someone else’s house).

You’re all done on food, all done on presents. You may still be with others, and unable to legitimately sneak off to read your new book (or even, your husband’s new book that you bought for him, but fully intend to read yourself).

What to do?

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Christmas Past

Christmas Day: batten down the hatches. Family. Being at home. Presents, food, etc.

Boxing Day: let socialising commence! The glory years were those in my teens when we would get together with our neighbours and their wider family. Sometimes our other good friends further up the hill would come along too.

Immediately, you have new people to eat your leftovers (and you can eat up theirs). Any tensions that may have built up the previous day can get diffused through being with others.

There was snooker playing. Usually some impromptu oratorio singing (with musical people in all three families). Jokes, teasing. A coal fire on for atmosphere – less for warmth – already having lots of people together.

There might be a spot of TV, if there was a comedy thing on that most people could relate to.

There might well be dog walking at some point (two out of three families being dog owners).

The common was a popular choice (with the option to find extra wood to put on the fire) but it might just be a quick dash across the road to the park, then back for cups of tea.

I regularly reference myself as an introvert, but this kind of party I could handle.

I knew the people, I knew what to expect. I knew that there would be a good time, and one that didn’t require me to be other than myself, on home turf.

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Christmas Present

Today, it’s bright. Quite chilly – but not so bad if you’re moving about enough. Time for a walk then.

Boxing Day walks are enough of a minor tradition that they gain newspaper recommendations for what to do, where to go. We settled for a walk by the river; the securing of a newspaper (with big general knowledge crossword).

The river is high – though I am told not as high as it has been. There is a strange combination – a river in spate, rushing along, and elsewhere, ice that has formed on the standing water on the banks, remaining from previous flood levels.

There is much to examine, if you take the approach of Junior Reader: including the quality of mud under your shoes (and up onto your clothes until they get tucked into socks).

The potential for stick-rattling on the playground railings in the park. The shape of suitable sticks: are they pistols? Light sabres? Pirate cudgels?

The smaller puddles with ice on can be tested with the same sticks. Later, a large black labrador careens through a huge icy puddle and comes out, shaking vigorously and ready for more.

The texture of the wood-chips in the playground is different – ice is still on them, in the shade. It feels rather like what I think it could be to walk on very large-scale breakfast cereal.

The remains of storm damage can be seen, further up the park. We admire a tree, partially rotten inside, that has now come down – and the poor bench that broke its fall, and lost the wooden slats on the back of the bench for its trouble.

There are birds to admire; little shelters to hide behind (ideal for surprising one’s grandparents on the way back). And, as in earlier years, there are pieces of broken tree to pick up and bring back for the fire.

Later, we are about to eat turkey for the third meal in a row. We tuck into soup first, and no one seems to mind.

A Christmas Carol: Christmas Day

If you are sneaking off from general mayhem…hello.

If you are looking for a quiet corner for a few minutes – me too.

If you’ve been heralded as champion cook for the day – or (more likely) if people have looked up as you passed them plates of food, maybe smiled, certainly tucked in and have gone quiet…greetings.

I would pass you a cup of tea through the screen if I could.

Find your moment of quiet today. Whenever it comes, whatever form it takes. If you’ve had to lock yourself in the loo to get it, that’s fine too.

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A wise friend of ours gave us some advice when we were preparing to get married: every now and then, on the big day, pause. Take some mental snapshots.

It’s advice that’s worth extending to Christmas Days too.

See who is talking to whom. Who’s telling a joke – who’s laughing.

Even if it’s just you, still take a moment to look around. Notice the quality of light outside. Even if it’s grey. Remember how the sky looks at this time of the year.

Take in the reduction in traffic noises – or phone calls – or whatever is your usual background busyness.

Your peace may come when you’ve fed them all, cleared away all the debris of the day, and most people are in bed again. That’s OK. It will certainly be peace when it comes.

Goodwill to all men can be strained, some Christmas days. I’d be naive to suggest otherwise.
But agree to a pocket of peace, on earth, right where you are.

Even if it’s a long slow breath as the kettle boils. If it’s escaping outside for a moment.
Even if it’s waking in the night and realising, blissfully, that it may be early, but the kids are not yet awake.

When you have your own little area of peace staked out, it will help. It won’t guarantee the picture-perfect big day, but it will help.

And if you can add to that peace a moment of internal rest, awe, hush…even better.

Merry Christmas.

A Christmas Carol: Christmas Eve

It’s finally here. The day awaited by many. The final countdown for last minute shopping.

The final Advent calendar door has been opened. The stocking has been brought out. Operation Christmas is go, go, go!

It’s starting to get dark. I remind myself that we have passed the winter solstice – there is a fraction more light than there was a few days ago.

Christmas Eve is that in-between space. Hopefully, that one where you can sink into a chair, and know you are pretty much ready.

I hope that you are not wrestling with a turkey that is pretending to be its own deep freeze. For those still working, I hope the finish line is in sight.

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Christmas Past

So many different Christmas Eves – united by one thing: waiting.

Waiting for the clock to go round so you can finally get at that stocking.

(One year, even in my teens, I woke up, convinced it must be morning. The kitchen clock said something past eleven at night. Reluctantly, I went back to bed.)

Waiting to see if what you’ve chosen will go down well with others in your family. Waiting for the big Christmas Day film.

Waiting to leave work, at the end of a waitressing shift – no early finish here. Catching the train home, from what seemed like a deserted station. Moving through the fog, as though entering a dream.

Memorably, having  a certain phone call with Dan. Waiting for the opportune moment to speak to my parents; to ask for an engagement ring I knew was in the family.

Waiting…finally the moment came. Over a plate of beans on toast. To start a sentence that can only feel like it’s in at the deep end: ‘So…we’d like to get married…’

The excitement. The provision of a ring. The hugs, the phonecalls back, the congratulations.

Christmas with Dan and his mum, together with my parents, a year on. The waiting, knowing that the next year would be our year for getting married.

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Later Christmas Eves. Working a half-day on Christmas Eve, looking forward to the office being closed up until January. The farewells, the separations, each to their own home, their own arrangements.

Christmas Eves in London, visiting Dan’s granny. Heading home on the bus, the slow way home, past light displays aplenty, winding our way back to Dan’s mum’s house for Christmas itself.

Waiting for a new year, one in which we would become three. And then, waiting for our first Christmas together.

The first stocking. The first Christmas morning all together.

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Christmas Present

Tonight, we’re waiting for the arrival of the International Space Station overhead, close enough to spot without need for a telescope.

An opportunity to put out some reindeer dust (aka oats and glitter). To try on a new pair of pyjamas. To have a special bath with some of my stock from Lush. (These three items are for Junior Reader, rather than me.)

Waiting to light the candles on our little wooden tree that we have on the table – the decoration we bought for our first married Christmas.

Waiting to put out food for Father Christmas and the reindeer. This year, with lebkuchen not being available, we trust Father Christmas will settle for stollen.

Waiting to see if Junior Reader will put out soft toys to spot for Father Christmas, as happened last year. (There has also been talk of setting up a Santa hide, in a similar way to a bird hide.)

Waiting to read the final stories before bedtime.

The final space, when it’s just the two of you awake. Waiting to see reactions the next day. Excitement.

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So many other waitings that we remember at this time. The waiting of Elizabeth to be a mother, all those years.

The waiting of Mary and Joseph to get safely to Bethlehem, to find somewhere to stay, all before the baby arrived.

The waiting of the wise men for the star – and then the waiting to catch up with it. To see where it stopped.

The waiting for fulfilment of prophecies.

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Whatever you are waiting for…I hope you feel a sense of it approaching.

A Christmas Carol: Christmas stockings

It’s almost Christmas Eve as I write today’s post. Almost.

Almost is close enough to be able to talk about Christmas stockings, isn’t it?

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Christmas Past

I think the very early days of Christmas stockings were proper long socks. There is a pair of good stout navy socks that my dad had when he was in the Merchant Navy (I think) – I think this is where my Christmas stocking experience began.

Some time in the dim and distant, my granny F (I think) arranged Christmas stockings for me and for my brother. I think my parents have them now.

They are red and white striped (and maybe green too?). They are a bit Dr Seuss, or candy cane, in appearance. And on the cuff, at the top, is embroidered the appropriate name.

I think these come from the era when we were living in Peebles, reasonably close to my grandparents when they were in Edinburgh. So maybe the stockings came out at a
get-together during that time.

In those days, we lived in a first floor flat – a big house, converted into flats with impossibly high ceilings. And there was a fireplace too – perfect place to hang the stockings.

I suspect Dad hammered in nails – one each side of the fireplace – and a stocking went on each side. And as far as I know, that pattern was repeated.

In the house where we lived for all of my secondary school years, you could see the nail holes beside the fireplace there. It was simply a case of pushing a nail back in, hanging up the stocking.

Well on into our teens, even if our Father Christmas perspectives had shifted somewhat – we still wanted a Christmas stocking. And Mum and Dad still brought out the stockings to hang up each year.

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Always, but always: a shiny coin. A satsuma. (I think my parents had had this pattern for their own childhood stockings.)

Likely bet: Terry’s Chocolate Orange. Possibly even a dark chocolate one, in later years.
Or Neapolitans, perhaps (which I now discover are no longer produced. I suspect public disgruntlement about The Coffee Flavoured Ones.)

Christmas stockings work well with things that are small, or long. So they’re fine to add the odd bottle of something for the bath. Something like this, for example.

Most memorable item in a Christmas stocking: a folding music stand. Indeed just what I needed, in those ‘cello playing days.

The day began with stockings: but of course! (But after 7 am, please.) I’m sure mine was initially unpacked on my own bed, delighted over, repacked again and carried through to my parents’ room.

And when we had opened our stockings on our parents’ bed, it would seem unfair that we had something and they did not.

So I would head down to find presents for them, from me and from my brother. And so the rest of the giving and receiving would unfold.

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Christmas Present

I would love to tell you that Junior Reader has an heirloom-type stocking that can be treasured for many a year.

But this would not be fair to say, as it was purchased in a bargain store. (Christmas traditions can still be borne out of limits on maternal time, patience and cash.)

No matter. It looks like Father Christmas, and it is jolly in red and white felt. The hook may not be the strongest, and has seen some repair, but the stocking is doing fine.

There is a space for a photo (should the visiting Father Christmas forget the child he is visiting) and Junior Reader is usually happy to spend some time on Christmas Eve hunting around for a reasonably recent photo.

Stockings are about appropriate levels of novelty – and astonishing levels of insight on the part of Father Christmas.

So I can reveal that not only has he brought Junior Reader a CD or two over the years, in the Christmas stocking, at times he has also kindly put the CD onto the family iPod so that it can quickly be listened to in any environment!

Father Christmas also seems to have a bit of a thing about glow sticks. This being at a dark time of the year, we see his point.

Lacking a chimney, or a suitable bed end for a stocking to hang on, we improvise with the stocking hanging on the outside-facing handle of Junior Reader’s door. Father Christmas has coped admirably with this over the years.

Given the obviously as-yet unknown stocking contents prospect of 2013, we can only speculate about what it will be like this year.

But we are reasonably sure that Father Christmas has enjoyed putting together his purchases.

A Christmas Carol: Christmas commiserations

Three sleeps to go. For the younger brigade, already in their beds as I write this, really only two. No time at all.

Time instead for Christmas commiserations to commence in earnest.

You know what these are. They are the moment you meet a fellow traveller on the well-trodden route towards Christmas and they ask ‘Are you all ready for Christmas then?’

And you both sigh, partly with genuine concern about the Christmas list, and partly with the opportunity to feel better about it. They haven’t even bought their wrapping paper yet!
And so on.

It struck me recently that making arrangements for Christmas is possibly on a par with organising a major event of wedding-size, every year.

You are catering for multiple people – and potentially multiple events. There are expectations over correspondence (aka Christmas cards), both in the sending and the sending back.

You are buying multiple presents – and potentially entering into wider negotiations to manage the delicate balance of not all buying the same thing while conveying an air of both deep caring and seeming spontaneity.

You are also the event organiser who may feel compelled to waylay your own best-made plans. When the to do list goes on and on, but the sudden additional invitation arrives,
you may well add it to the collection. And sigh some more.

And everyone is ‘arranging a wedding’ at the same time. So there are comparisons to be made – as well as advice to be sought, and maybe even dishes to borrow.

The factor that adds to Christmas commiserations is that the list does not necessarily factor in everyday life. You know, the need to have enough clean clothes for the coming week, meals to be cooked, dentists appointments to attend.

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Christmas Present

Throw the whole lot together, add some light deprivation, and it’s no wonder our faces can be as long as our lists, some days.

So it’s time to help you feel a little better. Here’s where I’m at, with limited time to go:

I sent as few cards as I felt I could get away with – because I can do Facebook or email messages to the rest. I did not then start making out extra cards when I received others.
(But thank you anyway!)

I didn’t do any Christmas baking this year. We didn’t go to a pantomime. I have not been ice skating, and I have also avoided wearing any overtly festive clothing.

Rain has stopped play once already on our possible Christmas funfair outing, and may well do so again tomorrow.

I am currently wrapping presents in the order of the necessity of them being handed over. This means that they were done for family we saw today. Others for the big day – not yet. Ones we’ll give after that – all in good time.

I have not yet done the Christmas food shop. Admittedly, I am not catering the big day, and we are not hosting anyone for Hogmanay, so there is less to do.

I am considering new and interesting ways to use up bits in the fridge, and avoiding going food shopping for a bit longer. Partly because it’s cold, dark, and raining a lot at the moment.

I have already detailed my approach to present buying, and it is determinedly low-maintenance (while still remembering family).

I am not planning a Christmas viewing schedule.  I have not hand-made lots of presents. I am not giving any parties.

I missed out a token gift for at least once sports teacher if not both. (I suspect both will still survive, and not turf Junior Reader out, come the new year.)

By the way, it turns out that writing a blog post a day during December, on Christmas themes, can serve as a great device for avoiding other pre-Christmas responsibilities.

We are all tired. The autumn term at school is a long one. The year has been particularly demanding at points. I am hoping that a jumbly tummy is not the sign of the onset of any nasty bug.

I am in the same place as you. There are moments when I am looking forward to the day itself, and others when I am much more interested in hibernation. Please grab a present from the pile while I find some nice leaf mould to curl up in.

There are little snippets of days where the fairy lights sparkle a little brighter, a school choir sings a little sweeter. A memory is cherished; a new tradition is formed.

There are larger chunks of days where the washing won’t dry; where the rain won’t stop; where there is little enthusiasm for the next Christmas get-together, and where we put ornaments on the tree in dribs and drabs.

Do we really want to hear ‘yes’ when we ask the Christmas commiseration question? Or are we really just trying to find a way to say: this is hard work isn’t it? How are you doing?

Thanks for asking. As well as can be expected. That’ll do for now. And how are you?