A Christmas Carol: Christmas parties

Ah, the Christmas party. Top contender for most feared Christmas experience? Or is that a little harsh?

Clothes shops think otherwise. Let there be little black dresses, and let them be sparkly too. Hairdressers gear up for the workload that goes with other people’s party season.

You know what they say. Introverts and extroverts both go to parties. (It’s true.)

But there is one group that soaks it all up, and one group that enjoys some of it, then secretly calculates how much a taxi home will cost if you are planning to make a break for it early.

You may have surmised which group I’m part of. (Though really, the fact that I stay home, sit on my own and write on a blog should have already given you some clues.)

The difficulty with parties is the contrast between the expectations, and our reading of what unfolds. Some days, the two may not be so far apart. Hurray for when that happens.

Or we may experience some aspect of the party which redeems it for us. It might be a good chat with a friend we haven’t spent time with for a while.

The odd free drink (depending on the party). The opportunity to see just what the photocopier can work with (depending on your Christmas party preferences).

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Christmas Past

In my memory, Christmas parties go back to the time of primary school. Those points when suddenly, non-uniform is allowed – and music, games and food combine to inflame the spirits of the under 10s.

You may even have been practising your dance moves in advance of the party. The noble Scottish tradition of teaching ceilidh dances in primary school means you can have most people up and dancing most of the time.

I think, at primary school stage, it was kind of OK. Most of us wanted games, and got them. There was some dancing, but everyone did the same, and no one had to work out what kind of dance moves were acceptable (or not).

There was food. We were expected to like jelly and ice cream, crisps and sausage rolls.
That was good, because we did. Even the wearing of party hats was not a matter of dispute.

Like any party though, there are highs and lows.  In primary school, we don’t always have the social skills to get through. To help ourselves have reasonable expectations of what the experience will be like.

By the end of school, we have it worked out enough, partly through repetition. (And I do have some positive memories of a Christmas party in my first year at secondary school, where the sixth formers brought in the (yes) records, and we suddenly felt terribly cool, dancing to the music of teenagers who had more pocket money than we did.)

But when we reach adulthood: what then? There are expectations of what we wear, how we look, what we drink, how we respond if there are ‘entertainments’. But just what are those expectations?

It would be good if, when we sign our contracts for work, and get our induction packs, someone would slip in a piece of paper that says something about how to prepare for office parties.

There may well be before-party parties, where people down a few to get up the courage to attend the actual party. (I never got invited to these (no great surprise there), but I know they happened because you could identify those who had, when they arrived at the venue.)

Every year, there are serious warnings put out to help people avoid saying and doing the wrong things at office parties. So there must be enough people who didn’t receive that slip of paper in their induction pack, so to speak.

I’m not sure that I ever saw anything particularly significant in that department. But then, I might have been having a good chat with someone, and forgotten to look up.

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Christmas Present

Junior Reader comes home from the school Christmas party. ‘Not happy Bob…not happy. Ask me why.’ (Or words to that effect.)

Well. It may be wiser to tell you what a true super hero would do if faced with organising a party for kids:

– make sure that every child gets a prize for something at the party – and make sure it happens every year.

– make sure that everyone’s cool dance moves are rewarded

– look out prizes which are not just food ones (not everyone will be able to eat them)

– magically remove any memory of trips, stumbles and other sadnesses of the day. Because if the child is feeling at all out of sorts, tired from a long term at school, or any number of other things, all the other difficulties of the day will be remembered.

I do my best to understand. I do. I am unsure how I would feel these days in a room of school kids where everyone is over-excited – not just the birthday girl or boy, as at other parties.

These days, I don’t get work parties. I get a meal and a chat. The chance to relax. I don’t have to wear a party hat. I don’t have to dress up if I don’t want to (and I generally don’t).

A meal – there’s less pressure on that front. A chat – no problem. The menu may be everything to do with Christmas, or nothing, and either is just fine.

Maybe if I view that as my party, I should see the notion of a Christmas party in a better light?

Meanwhile, I offer snuggling on the sofa and some children’s TV to soothe the wounded breast. It may well work for over 10s too.

And if you’re coming in late from an office party, you only have to wait until 6am to check. But you might want to avoid anything overly cheery, if you’ve had a few too many rounds with the office photocopier.

A Christmas Carol: Christmas TV

It’s the uniting of the nation, innit? That’s the theory, anyway. Food may not do it; religious choice may not do it. Weather, size of town, size of presents – or not.

Christmas is one thing – and many things. But at points, there is the promise of some special means of coming together. And TV might just make it work.

It might be the Queen’s Speech. The Morecambe and Wise Christmas special. The latest fiery soap opera cliffhanger.

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Christmas Past

It would begin with the arrival in the shops of the two highly esteemed publication: Radio Times and TV Times. (Back in the days of four channels, with only BBC1 and BBC2 appearing in the Radio Times. Plus radio, of course.)

The oohing and aahing over the treats within the pages: the TV equivalent of a chocolate box. The familiar plain chocolates of the Bond films, the Great Escape, the mysterious centres of big productions by an author no one’s really heard of before.

Out with the parental highlighter. Furrowed brows when there was a programming clash.
(Hard to remind ourselves that it took time for video recorders to be available – let alone for ones that would let you watch one channel and record another.)

I was too young to really remember the golden days of a Morecambe and Wise Christmas production. TV execs would love those viewing figures now – pretty much half the UK for a single show.

But I do remember us tuning in to the first broadcast of The Snowman in 1982. Becoming entranced by an animation with no words. Seeing a classic in its first unfolding.

There was a general (though unspoken) expectation that we would be watching The Queen’s Speech. But after that: after that was the present to unwrap when all the others under the tree were already done.

The big Christmas Day film: that was worth waiting for. And it would generally be new to TV, exciting, family friendly.

And we would watch it together.

Later, big meal and big film out of the way, there would be light nibbles of some kind.
A little of this, a little of that, on the TV front too.

What Mum and Dad watched after we had gone to bed, I don’t know. But I do remember a succession of films, animations and so on, taking you on the long march from Christmas through to the new year.

We didn’t watch them all, by any means. But you’d checked them off in the TV listings.
You were prepared. If the weather turned bad, if the get togethers didn’t quite come off:
you were ready.

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Christmas Present

These days, what to pick? The chocolate box has turned into an overpacked shopping trolley.

In some ways, it can be easier if your TV set up is the equivalent of a supermarket basket.
It’s easier to pick. You might be looking over at someone else’s family size trolley at the checkout, but you know what you’ll be having at Christmas.

The bigger the range of programmes, the harder it is to select. It’s a full table. You can get indigestion just looking in the cupboards, so to speak.

With ten days to go until the big day, I confess to not having checked what’ll be on. In the past, I wouldn’t have imagined that.

Is it world weariness, to match that of the shopping? Is it having heard that there will be more repeats this year?

Some of it comes from the curse of TV these days: too much information.

We know Dr Who will have a Christmas Day special (for some, the successor to Morecambe and Wise in its attempts to appeal to all ages) – but many of us know at least some of what to expect.

It is a present, yes – long-awaited for some. But it’s a bit like peeking in your parents’ wardrobe a few weeks in advance. The surprise is not quite the same.

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Christmas Future

Who knows what Christmas TV will be in the future. Will we bother with TV listings for Christmas at all? Will we just stream what we like?

Maybe we’ll sit in the same room, watching completely different things on handheld devices. Sharing the same space – but in different places emotionally.

Some will say we are anyway; that Christmas TV divides as much as it unites. But then so do many of the experiences of this season.

If we were all off on summer holiday on the same day of the year, would we be doing the same things? Watching the same programmes?

Christmas is an oddity in that, for the bulk of the country (allowing for those who are working on Christmas Day), we are all ‘free’ at the same time. (Tell that to the figure hunched over the cooker, still doing oven calculations.)

So if we’re free, we might just kick back and watch TV? We might equally gather round and sing carols, but that doesn’t necessarily happen at the same time in every home. There’s no shared conversation about it afterwards.

Without other obvious contenders for offering a similar experience, it may be that Christmas TV will have to do.

And if we don’t like it? At least we can unite the nation in having a good moan about it when regular daily life resumes again.

A Christmas Carol: Christmas outings

You tick them off the list: tree, food, cards, presents… You are doing your level best to get into the mood, whether through crooners or candles. But what of the Christmas outing?

Just what is a Christmas outing anyway? A trip that helps build the mood for you and your family? Or another reason to dig deep into your wallet?

A pantomime may be the classic answer. (I’ll deal with this one separately.) But it could be other things: a walk in the snow. A trip to the big city to see the Christmas lights. A carol concert – or a Salvation Army band playing in the street.

You get the picture.

Opinions are divided. You don’t need to be the designated Scrooge to recognise that there are lots of demands on the family purse in December. So how important is a Christmas outing, in the grand scheme of things?

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Christmas Past

I don’t really remember Christmas outings in the past – family ones, that is. But a few aspects had the feel of a Christmas outing, even if they weren’t designated as such.

When we lived close to a Forestry Commission site which sold Christmas trees, the trip to get the tree was something special.

You weren’t exactly heading into the woods, axe in hand, as you can (legally) do in various places (usually abroad).But it was closer to it: the cold, the proximity to nature.

The pine sap was easy to spot. Wellies, hats, big coats. The impossible excitement (at eight) of those machines you throw a tree into, where it comes out at the other side, bagged like Christmas satsumas. (Just not in orange.)

It was a preparation you made together – including the low-level bickering over appropriate size and shape of tree. (No one said a Christmas outing had to be entirely amicable.)

Others are more incidental. You’re out with others, and you have a quick ‘moment’ between shops, hearing a brass band, catching sight of a choir in the middle of a shopping centre. You share that little shiver: that awareness of Christmas, the chill and the warmth together.

Sometimes we seek these out – they may not even cost us anything. Attending an evening when the Christmas lights are turned on. Walking past window displays on a late night shopping evening, hitching a ride on the mood of the crowd.

It depends how we’re doing in the run up to Christmas. Sometimes the outing is better because there are fewer strings attached: no to do list, other than to turn up, to soak up, hopefully to enjoy.

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Christmas Present

We had an outing planned today. With the delights of the big city to hand, we could have bought ourselves some seasonal excitement: going to a fun fair, being there as it goes dark and the lights go on.

(We’d done the fun fair before, a couple of times. For some, it’s the rides: for others, it’s the proximity of gluwein, wooden chalets, twinkly gifts, even if you look but don’t touch.)

It wasn’t to be this time. With wind and rain forecast – and then in evidence – we stayed home. It was the right move for today: friends to be with, our anticipating of the days to come shared over cups of tea and reasonably calm noises off from the kids.

On parting today, somehow it came about that we all sang We Wish You a Merry Christmas. Standing in the hall, six of us, zipping up coats, sharing an experience of Christmas.

Sometimes the best outings are the ones where you go somewhere without having to step outside the front door.

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Christmas Future

A classic frost fair, like the ones of the past when the Thames froze over: now that would be a Christmas outing and a half. Not an option these days – and really, I’m grateful it’s not as cold as that now.

Other places, more familiar with snow as a regular fixture, deal with it much better. More expectation of being outside, despite the temperatures.

Some day, we’ll get as far as ice skating on one of those outdoor Christmas ice rinks.
They seem to have grown in popularity at the same time as the likelihood of snow before or at Christmas has decreased in the UK.

No matter that it’s not the Rockefeller Centre rink – nor even the wonderful space at Somerset House. We’ll settle for a local variant some time.

Maybe some day I’ll develop a liking for chestnuts – another classic winter treat. No need to roast them on an open fire – a paper bag full, outside the British Museum, would be a start.

Whether it’s planned or incidental, paid for or a bonus – the outing is all about connecting with each other, as much as with Christmas itself.

Connection: despite, or maybe especially because of, the cold and the dark.

A Christmas Carol: Christmassy food

Weekly food shop today. Almost half-way into the month, and I don’t seem to have stocked up on any Christmas food yet. Now is the season to stockpile, surely?

That’s what the supermarkets want us to think, of course. I know that the shelves go higher for Christmas, but they seem to have got fatter at the same time. Do they add extra depth of shelves too?

I’m well able to bulk buy food, I know (I’ve alluded to this before). Part of me knows what is expected of me as a consumer. And yet – I hold off a bit longer.

Some of it is knowing that we’ll be with different family members at Christmas and Hogmanay. We don’t need to buy as much as if we were hosting. But has it gone the same way as the more general Christmas shopping? Am I simply not bovvered?

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Christmas Past

Back in the days when shops were shut for longer over Christmas, and fridges were smaller (or in fact just larders), it really was a stocking up. If there were any expectations of you as a hostess at other times of the year, multiply it up for Christmas.

My own childhood was not really in that era. But I can recall a certain look in my mother’s eye when calculating pints of milk and when shops would next be open.

Christmas is a juggling act on many fronts, particularly the food one. But what is Christmas food anyway?

On one hand, in the UK, it’s fairly simple. Turkey is the main deal for many (to which add cranberry sauce). Some potatoes (of your choice), possibly more starch in the form of bread sauce, and/or stuffing.

Some veg of your choice – the point at which to see how the room divides down the lines of pro- and anti-sprout. Possibly some other dalliances like little sausages, wrapped rolls of bacon, or other savouries to stand against the blander turkey meat.

Gravy. Your Sunday roast, really, with a bit more oomph (and a lot more work, naturally).

Some families are very strict in this regard: turkey it is. No discussions. Others chop and change. I remember a decision to have beef one year; salmon another. But mostly, turkey was the de facto choice.

There are other foods that are properly Christmassy, in that they only really come out at Christmas time. Cue: Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, mince pies.

(Despite the turkey plus cranberry notion being fairly tried and tested, cranberries would often be relegated to Christmas-only, until Delia took the nation in hand.)

Others belong to other times of year, but are happy to put their party hats on and cosy up with Christmas. I’m thinking ham, trifle, and any number of other items that take on new identities with the addition of alcohol (rum butter, for example).

But every household has its own dos and don’ts for Christmas food. I’ve written before about the long-awaited arrival of the smoked salmon through the letterbox. Its counterpart, a little tub of clotted cream (from a relative in Cornwall), was also eagerly anticipated.

Christmas was also the timing for my discovery of white Stilton with apricot. No one else really took to it – I took it, and made sure it stayed that way.

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Christmas Present

Times change – and so do national tastes. Dan today was horrified at having missed out on being able to buy stollen, the German Christmas cake equivalent with marzipan through the middle.

Many Brits have also adopted panettone, the Italian Christmas cake version – still fruited, much lighter on the stomach after a big lunch. And, happily, lebkuchen, the Christmas gingerbread (often chocolate covered) that is also German (but Poland lays claim to as well).

Christmas is as Christmas does. I never actually managed to spend a Christmas abroad as an adult, but came close to it my second time round in Poland.

So I sampled the Polish classic of beetroot soup with little floating dumplings (‘uszka‘, or little ears), a Christmas Eve speciality. I’d happily keep that in – and I wouldn’t mind trying the multiple fish dishes.

Without necessarily trying, we seem to have ended up having fish fairly often on Christmas Eve. I wouldn’t say it’s a tradition, but I quite like it – something lighter on the palate before the onslaught of the following day.

But the supermarket would like you to know that there are other ‘have tos’ to add to your pre-Christmas shopping list. Nuts various, still in their shells, for some Nutcracker reenactments of your own.

Dried fruit – for all those Christmas baking items. But Christmas, too, lays claim to the exotic: the items just into the shops (going further back in time to real seasonality), like citrus fruits, better quality dates.

Nigella has led her own campaign for the pomegranate as a Christmassy food choice – and it works, both for colour and the exotic food aspect.

And there are other treats that seem more connected with Christmas. It isn’t for nothing that Edmund is drawn into the White Witch’s schemes by means of Turkish Delight – another food that lends itself to Christmassy eating, with its clouds of white icing sugar.

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Christmas Future

Where does a Christmas shopping list begin or end? Christmas is often the excuse for many indulgences: olives, good cooked meats, special nibbles.

In the past, we have had our choose a cheese mini-ritual, where each of us chose a particular cheese to have over Christmas time. (There was some sharing, of course. A chance to try the others, as well as to invest time in appreciating one’s own choice.)

This year, when the Christmas shop finally comes, it may be something different: a different type of ham each? There is something fun about allowing yourself that bit more of a ‘treat’ item, every once in a while.

I hope that Christmas, whatever form it takes, will continue to include leftovers. When post-Christmas torpor sets in, a spot of quick kitchen invention means that something great can often be borne from humble ingredients.

(I’m thinking of a certain kind of potato salad, with leftover roast veg, plus some pickles for a brilliant kick of acidity. I am happy to continue to dream in this direction, or any that a given fridge’s contents suggest.)

My main hope, whatever we’re eating, with whom, is that there will be time to linger. Plus time enough to have the kind of meals where you are happy to bring out much the same for lunch, day by day.

A family friend, now gone and much missed, coined the wonderful phrase ‘fruits de fridge’. That’s really what I have in mind. But not the easiest to quantify for that Christmas shop, whenever it comes.

A Christmas Carol: wrapping presents

It’s one of those jobs. Some love it, others hate it, and some will volunteer in shopping centres to help others with it.

Some people have to wait till their other half is out of the house to get underway. Others get underway with paper and tape when the kids are in bed.

Wrapping presents is somewhat affected by your present buying policy, for starters. I think it’s the unspoken reason why vouchers are useful. No prizes for realising you can lick an envelope quicker than you can get the scissors out.

If you want an eco steer on present wrapping (and gift tags), it’s all here, back in the series I did earlier in the year.

(And as I discovered yesterday’s music post covered quite a lot of the same ground as one I’d written further back, I’ll spare you the same again.)

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Christmas Past

When I was keener on buying presents, still with some inspiration, the wrapping of presents was also good. I would enjoy the whole process – the wrapping bringing you an extra step towards the anticipation of handing over the present.

I don’t so much remember wrapping family presents, but probably more the ones for school friends.

But present wrapping is a tradition in its own right – getting the bag, the tag, the scissors, the tape. I’m sure what I remember more is helping my mum with wrapping other people’s presents.

There is something about ‘helping’ as a child. You feel the whole process. You are convinced that you are an integral part of what’s happening – putting your finger on the string as the parent ties a knot.

The parent is perfectly able to do the whole thing, of course, or you wouldn’t get your own presents so easily. But that part doesn’t seem to come to mind.

But in sharing the activity, you share some anticipation. Truth be told, children have all the anticipation with more to spare – so maybe it’s for the adult’s benefit.) And to let off some steam from kids’ Christmas boilers, so that the pressure isn’t running quite so high.)

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Christmas Present

Nowadays, the main present wrapping is kids’ ones: and somehow, I can retain some anticipation there. There is more prospect of excited faces, squeals and all the other deeply satisfying indicators that the present Done Good.

But sometimes you need a little extra nudge. I would tend to put The Music on (if Dan would let me), particularly if I was wrapping presents earlier in December.

This year, I had a different take on it all – I got to help put together Christmas hampers for the school’s Christmas fundraiser.

I also discovered that wrapping things in clear cellophane does make things look great (even if the eco worrier in me is less sure on whether it can be reused or not).

I don’t as yet know who has won the hampers. But even so, putting things together was fun – partly because I’d only had to donate one item, and so had everyone else. I didn’t have to relive a lengthy shopping expedition when the wrapping began.

I quickly discovered that Jenners, Lakeland and the like will not be employing me to pack their official hampers. I don’t have enough of the visual knack – but that’s OK.

Large hamper, fewer items = pretty look. Smaller hamper, lots of items = less fancy, but hopefully more satisfying for the winners.

I’m glad we were packing more of the latter type. Whatever your present is (even, however much it’s ‘yours’ or not), you want it to be a satisfying one. (Fingers crossed.)

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Christmas Future

Who know what future presents will be like? Will we just activate them online? Will there be anything physical, any items to put under a tree?

There’s no need to wrap an activation code. But then, if the best things in life are free (so we’re told), do we need to wrap those either?

I realise that writing a blog is a bit of a present wrapping service. I use words to package the items of my life, the thoughts, the moments.

I smooth out the paper of unruly remembrance, and do my best to get the punctuation to line up in the right place. (A bit like trying to match the pattern on wrapping paper.)

Not every blog post is fancy. They certainly don’t all come with bows and ribbon. But I take time in going back and looking. Arranging the folds of the paper, as it were.

When I write, I like to package the free things – the moments that I seem to write a lot about. I unpackage them for myself as I write, and put them together again by the end.

Sometimes, they’re as much for me as they are for anyone else. But they are meant for others too.

Whether it’s sharing the same sentiment, laughing at similar things – these can be presents too.