Last Christmas, the best card ever arrived.
There are four phases in life, read the card.
They are:
1. You believe in Santa
2. You don’t believe in Santa
3. You are Santa
4. You look like Santa
We are now entering Stage 4 and oh, by the hairs of my chinny chin chin, all I want for Christmas is an epilator.
So many people pack their bags to get away from the enforced jollity – it’s understandable.
My big SAD light burns bright in the corner and with each slow dusk we mourn the fading of the light.
Not much longer and the days will be on the turn - the solstice approaches.
Funny how much light matters.
Funny how Christmas feels like stress.
What is this endless quest to make a day perfect; to make a season merry and bright like the Christmas ads on TV?
At least our boy is low maintenance.
“Throw me £50 and I’ll buy something and you can give it to me,” he says.
“But what would you really like?” I ask.
“Fifteens,” he replies.
Fifteen crushed digestives, 15 marshmallows, 15 cherries and a tin of condensed milk, roll it in coconut and you’ve made his Christmas.
We still laugh at the year we ordered a surprise PSP something – limping around minus an arm and a leg. It never arrived.
A chance trip out to the coal bunker and there it was, nestled up to the slack, free to any enterprising passer-by.
My sister is not quite at Santa Stage 4 … last time I looked her chin was smooth as a baby’s bottom.
But she’s wondering what to get her squad.
I tell her our boy is happy with 50 quid.
“He’s easy pleased. What about the surprises?” she asks.
“Surprises,” I ask. “The surprise is there is no surprise.”
There will be a book and a big bar of chocolate … our wants are small.
My brother is in the throes of Christmas for a large family.
They have an elf on the shelf who watches if you are naughty or nice.
I’ve had it with nice… I’d rather be naughty.
Never mind Christmas, we talk electricity bills.
“I’m disgusted. Our monthly bill has gone from £40 to £55 a month,” I tell him. “Ridiculous.”
“Ours is more than double that,” he tells me. “Who are you? Jacob Marley? Do you all sit around a single electric bulb, warming your hands?”
We do live with the phantom light switcher offer of old Belfast town – I am often reminded gently of the need to turn lights off and shut doors.
It is reassuring. My dad often came home on a winter’s night with the cry: “What is this… Blackpool illuminations? Turn off those lights.”
But I could never sleep without the big light in the landing … that was always a given.
Now, when I wake at 3am and wander down to the sofa .. just me and old eight eyes, our fireplace spider - I put the light on and fall into a deep sleep in its soft yellow glow.
For Christmas this year, we’re staying low key.
We shall find the joy in small moments – no great expectations.
We laugh at the years that went wrong - the year of the big flu when I resurrected myself to drive in search of fast food on Christmas day for our boy …. don’t try it, nobody’s open.
Long ago times when aunt Eileen took us all out to Woolworths for a treat.
There were six of us.
When my sister pointed to a doll on the top shelf, it was a little beyond her price range.
“Lower your eyes, daughter dear,” she said.
She had no shame, Aunt Eileen. She’d go into a shop and ask the price of something that was outrageously expensive.
When the shop assistant told her the cost, she’d joke: “Wrap up two!” and laugh loudly. We’d all be mortified.
No Christmas will ever have the magic of childhood.
Even down to the dead turkey dangling upside down from a hook in our garage and giving me the evil eye on my way past.
The bird was delivered dead but with its head.
Remember putting off the dinner for Christmas Top of the Pops?
Yes, I loved Christmas until I was Christmas. There has been the whiff of singed martyr wafting from our kitchen.
But I’ve made peace with it now. As Aunt Eileen advised, I’m lowering my eyes.
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.
