It’s the 28th December. The Advent calendars are down, the turkey’s been consumed, the clementines (along with anything healthy) remain uneaten and the traditional photograph in the Christmas jumper has been taken.
As the old saying goes it’s “all over bar the shouting”. I’m not sure when the shouting will take place, however I suspect it will involve my daughter Rachel!
Christmas Day was a pleasant occasion in the company of my family. It started with the opening of gifts and the exchanging of the flu vaccine. However it wasn’t all positive, as we did have to free Santa from the bear trap. This had been inadvertently set, when Rachel misheard me say “Whatever you do, DON’T set the bear trap!” the prior evening.
Santa was a bit shaken and admitted he’d have preferred to be greeted with the traditional mince pie and a carrot! However, he was confident he could complete his deliveries with the damaged ankle ligaments he’d sustained! ……. Sorry for anyone whose presents were delayed due toour domestic communication mix up!
After a hearty full English breakfast, cooked and eaten to the sound of traditional classical Christmas songs sung by a choir, a general tidy up was undertaken before the arrival of other family members.
When we woke, the house wasn’t in too bad a shape. However, the 50 strong choir had made a right mess, with discarded top hats, chestnut shells and hip flasks strewn across the living room! Family members questioned whether the performance of beautifully melodic festive carols was worth the subsequent littering by the choral ensemble.
After my wife Karen and I had tidied up the house and removed the blood stain caused by Santa’s unfortunate run in with a bear trap, we ventured upstairs to get showered and don our new Christmas jumpers.
We were expecting our son Jonny and his girlfriend Jenny to arrive, from their York home, at around midday. However, around that time I received a text from my lad to say they’d been slightly delayed. He didn’t go into details, but I prayed he hadn’t set his bear trap in error as well, delaying (and injuring) Santa further!
They finally got here around 12.30 pm. Presents were exchanged, followed by a Christmas tipple and a toast to the festive season. We imbibed prosecco or beer as a we toasted our health, happiness and Macauley Culkin’s home protection at this spiritual time!
Dinner was taken at 2 pm when the food was ready. We didn’t have it at 1 pm as it hadn’t cooked by then, or at 3 pm as it would have been chuffing stone cold! So it turned out we picked a good time to eat!
We hadn’t seen Jonny and Jenny for a few weeks so we had lots to talk about! So over dinner, Karen, Rachel and I furnished them of tales of recent holidays, nights out, gigs and meeting various local celebrities. We told them some true stuff as well, but I think they enjoyed the made up stories more!
It all seemed to be going well until Rachel started on her recent California and Las Vegas break anecdotes. At this point Jonny feigned a bilious attack so he could alight the dining table for respite!
A great tradition on Christmas Day in the UK and Commonwealth is the annual Queens Speech to her subjects. We have a further tradition in our house where Karen, at around the same time as the Queen, gives her own Christmas message on this festive occasion. To be honest, unlike Her Majesty, it’s never a wordy monologue but it always adds to our day!
This years narrative was at around 3pm, as we sat at the dining table glued to her every word. I’m paraphrasing here, but from memory the speech went something like this “Jonny, do you want Christmas pudding with cream for dessert? Or melt in the middle chocolate pudding? Or cheesecake?”
I’m sure you will agree a lot of thought, confectionery research, editing and pudding buying went into this years monologue. Amazingly, Jonny just plumped for the Christmas pudding, not all three! The greedy get!!
After dinner, the day was taken up with board games (James Bond Trivial Pursuit and Gogglebox) along with the TV (Home Alone 2 and Muppets Christmas Carol). Not forgetting the further pigging on food! I’ll elaborate on those elements of the day in my next blog!
To close, I was asked the other day what was the favourite present. The response “Anything you didn’t buy me!” apparently wasn’t the right answer! In all seriousness, I liked all of my presents, but if pushed would say it was the goose that lays golden eggs……….. Or it was until I found out it was a gander!!
