I Love Christmas

o.k o.k O.K!, I know what I wrote in the last blog seems to contradict this but the truth is, I didn’t feel Christmasy until it snowed last week. Suddenly I noticed that people were smiling, people were drinking, people were planning big social gatherings. People looked excited. I felt a strange warming of the blood (it may have been the mulled wine) a whistle on my lips and a spring in my step as I headed into the centre of London to do my Christmas shopping. I cant say I’ve sobered up since.

I’ve had snowball fights with my nieces and nephews, I’ve toasted champagne to absent friends and I’ve sat in warm pubs drinking warm beer by a roaring fire. I’ve seen strangers become firm friends and I’ve heard family tales of woeful embarrassment wheeled out to be celebrated. This was my favourite embarrassing story I heard this year. For some reason my cousin was nicknamed ‘Church-head’ when he was growing up and my Aunt told the assembled throng about the time he jumped in the freezing North Sea fully clothed as a 6 year old. The only dry item of clothing she had was a t-shirt. She duly put his cold legs through the armholes leaving his ‘small’ dangly bits hanging through the neck hole. He had to wear this until his clothes dried. I discussed with my cousin why we should probably all be in therapy. Families are funny. Traditions are funny. My family has a tradition of transporting gravy over long distances on Christmas day (the reason why is lost in the mists of time). We also go to pay our respects on Boxing Day at the graveyard in the village where friends and relatives are buried. Christmas is a time to Celebrate with those present and remember those who are absent.

What are your Christmas traditions? Is your family as odd as mine?

Happy Christmas and I hope you all have a peaceful and healthy 2010

Jez