The Real Spirit of Christmas

Countdown to Christmas has well and truly begun.  Anyone who knows me understands that I absolutely love this time of year – in fact to me Christmas Eve is the most romantic night in the calendar.  It’s an odd label to give this night, I know.  For many lucky people, it’s more about family and reflection; gratitude and peace.  And indeed, it is about all those things for me too, regardless of how unconventional the definition, given my reality of those terms, might be.  

However, there is something about the twinkling lights, the candle lit churches, the close cold nights and in the case of this beautiful year, the snow! that make it a perfect time for enjoying relationships – platonic as well as traditional.  In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I find Christmas time so romantic, I could be persuaded to re-marry should the right man come along and propose under the soft hue of fairy lights!  But I deviate…into the land of fantasy. 

It’s also the only time of year I attend church – even though I was brought up as Catholic as they come – European strength Christian, in fact.  So much so, I’m convinced I’d find Spanish crusade in my family tree if I cared to look.  I don’t...care to look - I mean imagine finding out that I have Spanish Inquisitors somewhere in the bloodline.  In any event I’ve long abandoned the irreconcilable, restrictive and intolerant nature of Dogma but I do still buy into the sentiment of love conquering all. 

This year is no different.  I can’t wait for the annual carol and crib service at the local church followed by (one must balance the virtuous with the ‘naughty but nice’) the customary tipple at the local wine bar with some dear friends and The Lish.  This has become a ‘Night Before Christmas’ tradition for her too not least because of the forbidden nature of being out at what she feels is late night (it’s usually all over by 7:30pm).

We then stroll back in a ‘Wizard of Oz’ hold…you know the one where Dorothy and the Scarecrow interlock arms to “follow the yellow brick road’ with me (the scarecrow by this point) in the warm embrace of mulled wine and Lishy in the grip of an electrifying excitement and all the while looking to the skies for a sign of Santa.

Then begins the whole business of subterfuge.  We peel and chop a couple of carrots for the reindeer…with me asking, do we really need to peel them?  These are wild animals after all??? But no, I must peel them.  Then the biscuits and milk for Santa.   Lately I’ve been asking if we can’t just leave him a whisky but no, Lishy points out that it’s for a reason drinking and driving is illegal.  OK then.

Finally, we sit and I enjoy the last few gorgeous and random moments of conditional juvenile obsequiousness before Lishy goes to bed, satisfied that she has done enough (albeit just in that last half hour) to have earned what she knows will be a hill of gifts the following morning.

The night has only really begun then for most parents of younger children.  If they’ve been organised, the presents will already be wrapped.  I only made the mistake once in my lifetime as a parent of leaving the wrapping until Christmas Eve.  These days all I have to do is wait for the tell tale sign of evenly spaced breaths coming from the nipper's bedroom to start the last bit of Yuletide rigmarole.

If untangling the fairy lights for the tree was cause for self-harm, getting the ladder out of the airing cupboard from behind the ironing board, under the vacuum cleaner and through mop handles that come alive like those in Disney's Fantasia, makes me remember why I support Euthanasia.  Only then can I begin to tackle the obstacle course of transporting gifts from their various hiding places.

Cussing at every snag and stub, I am driven by the pellucid knowledge that this is likely my very last year of pantomime.  I suspect Lishy herself knows it's not Santa making all that fucking racket but she is complicit for the sake of guaranteeing the bloated annual delivery of presents.  

That done, I reserve the last laugh for myself of course in the form of an 18 year old single malt by the light of the tree.  This, my friends, ends up being the real spirit of Christmas! ha ha Thank you, come again!!!

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