Well, that’s it over for another year.
These are the dog days – a week of gloom between Christmas and New Year, being creative with leftovers; exotic cheeses, unusual chutneys, half the Christmas pudding fossilising in the fridge and only the ones nobody likes left at the bottom of the Quality Street tin.
This is the tyranny of tradition. “Eat it up, or it’ll have to be thrown out and there’s many who’d follow the crows for it!”
Were Christmas choices left to the individual, they’d probably plump for steak ‘n’ chips. Even the festive poinsettia on the windowsill has lost the will to live.
Television fare is equally dismal – repeats of ‘classic’ comedy series, so old they have their own pension book. Like the Royle family, we’re slumped on the sofa, still wearing our Christmas pyjamas, pretending we’re ‘Gogglebox’ critics.
Apropos of nothing, when did Christmas pyjamas for adults become ‘a thing’? Yet another bone of contention to be gnawed over is the choice of Christmas films. I have fought slumber through ‘Elf’ for seven consecutive Christmas afternoons in Daughter Dear’s house because of ‘tradition’. The Late Loving Spouse and I came early to a civilised decision to watch our own favourites in separate rooms – ‘The Italian Job’ for him, ‘Brief Encounter’ for me. A happy and peaceful Christmas for us both.
As Tolstoy (or was it Chekhov?) wrote, “Every family is unhappy in its own way.” One’s nearest is not necessarily one’s dearest when mewed up together over a space of days. Buying online with almost instantaneous delivery has proven so seductive that the sanity-restoring safety-valve of the January sales (starting on Boxing Day) are hardly worth getting dressed to go out in inclement weather to spend money we don’t have on stuff we don’t need.
Parents unwise enough to buy (sorry – I mean ‘order from Santa’) outdoor items, are obliged to brave the elements and venture forth for a thorough foundering, to watch their offspring wobble, skid and fall off rollerskates, skateboards, scooters and/or bikes and bring them home via casualty, bleeding and sobbing. Those soft-hearted parents who gave in to ardent pleas for a Christmas puppy or kitten, unpredictable at both ends, deserve all they get.
Boxing Day. Time hangs heavy in an unstructured day. Too much togetherness is too much. The air thrums with tension and the plaintive inquiry: “Is nobody going to make a drop of tea?” For the woman of the house, the customary chores mean little respite. The tree (a ‘natural’ one of course) drops needles at a rate of knots, necessitating daily hoovering, impeccably timed, round the feet of the man of the house right in the middle of a crucial sporting event on screen.
Whining children declare they’re bored, or squabble over perceived unfairness. Custom, good manners (and current Covid restrictions) decree that, apart from visiting blood relations, one doesn’t drop in unannounced upon friends, however close. There’s nothing more mortifying than the casual caller, (“Just passing!”) who discovers the house in chaos, the radiators draped in damp washing and the usually impeccably-groomed hostess make-up free in tracksuit bottoms and a bobbly cardigan.
The dismantling of Christmas is nearly more trouble than its preparation. One half-understands the eccentrics who keep their decorations up all year round. The house looks bare and gloomy without them and the baubles and bits never fit back in the boxes they came in. There’s also the legacy of online shopping to deal with, in the form of a sizeable and unsteady pyramid of cardboard containers in the garage. Small children (if you can get them) are useful for stamping them flat for recycling. Virtue-signalling firms trumpet their commitment to eco-friendly packaging. I had a single cosmetic pencil delivered in a carton the size of a shoebox, stuffed with seven feet of crumpled brown paper.
Well, Christmas is done and dusted. It’s hardly been a typical one, memorable for all the wrong reasons. Circumstances and anxiety have kept many from friends and family. May the next one be different….
