Deck the Halls

I’m sorry, was that Christmas? I appear to have missed it.

It only seems a week ago that I was condemning shops selling tinsel in September and now here we are, four days post-Christmas, lumbered with 94 cards, seven unused crackers and five vats of turkey soup. I didn’t even manage to put the decorations up until the 22nd, and now I’m going to have to dismantle them all again. Ah screw it, they’re staying put – I’m extending Christmas!

But aside from being somewhat fleeting, Christmas in our household was successfully merry this year. Apart from the moment I discovered that Mum had put ‘Time Delay’ wrinkle reducing syrum in my stocking. When I asked her if she was trying to tell me something, the reply was “Well of course not lovely, but you can never start too early”. Fantastic. I’m awaiting a brochure on back pillows to fall through the letterbox any day now. However, I did feel slightly reassured when my brother pulled soap out of his stocking. He didn’t bother asking whether he was supposed to be taking a hint.

On the whole the present selection under our tree this year was brilliant. With the exception of the gifts from our wonderful but mildly insane elderly neighbour, whose idea of Christmas shopping involves a shufty round her house for anything she no longer wants. This year’s treats included two candles with the wicks cut off, and an ornament of two snowmen with wire arms, glued together at the torso. But it’s the thought that counts.

In keeping with our family tradition, Christmas day began with me waking my brother up at an unreasonable hour to open our stockings together, sat on the floor in the hallway. When I first started waking him up on Christmas day, I think he only got out of bed to humour me because I was so excited. Now, I’m still just as excited but I’m also ten years older, and I think next year an 8am wake-up call might genuinely piss him off. The rest of the day consisted of champagne (again, at an unreasonable hour of the morning) followed by steady drinking with family friends until lunch at 4pm. Then of course comes the plentiful array of BBC Christmas specials, at which point Dad falls asleep in his chair and wakes up just in time for our evening film. This year’s movie was Harry Potter.

After this point, we are usually starting to flake so we either go to bed or re-fill our glasses. However, this year we had a family gathering the following day to prepare for (why they choose to do this on a day when we are guaranteed to be hungover I have no idea). This involved re-tidying the house and preparing cheery answers to “So, how’s the job going?”, “Don’t you look like your mother?” (which, given that I apparently need anti-wrinkle cream, is probably more uncomfortably accurate this year than ever), and finally, the dreaded: “So, any new men on the scene we should know about?”. Considering that my aunts and mother spend at least two hours a day gossiping on the phone, they must know that I am still single, and I can therefore never understand if they ask this question out of spite, or because they think it might re-enforce the importance of finding a male.

So, in typical English manner, the only real complaint I have this year is about the weather. I was sure that the freezing temperatures we’ve had to endure was a tell tale sign that we could anticipate a beautiful white Christmas. Oh well. You can’t have everything…but I live in hope.

So, to all of you reading this, here’s a slightly belated but still wholly enthusiastic MERRY CHRISTMAS! And a very happy 2009.