Now many of you will already be aware of this, but as I write there are only 178 shopping days left until Christmas. Now I know that might seem like plenty and I’m sure many of you are wondering why on earth (when we’re experiencing one of the hottest weeks of the year) I’m thinking about Christmas. Why indeed? Well I’ll be honest with you, this is more about conditioning than anything else.
From the middle of June onwards my mother starts making enquries as to what each and every one of her children has planned for Christmas. This is her not-so-subtle way of trying to "bagsy" you for Christmas before anyone else does. It's a good tactic as in June nobody has ever made firm plans for the holiday season (why would they??), and invariably she manages to secure the attendance of at least two of the four children and their partners/children etc. Mum loves being the hostess, and to be fair she's really rather good at it.
Therefore, it should be a simple decision – It's my second Christmas with no significant other and naturally it should equal dinner with the parental unit, unfortunately my dad decided to throw a spanner in the works by popping his clogs and therefore stuffing up the family Christmas routine. My mum remarried, and although the house is still the same house, and my mum still makes the best Christmas dinner going, the atmosphere would invariably be less like spending the day with your immediate family, and more like spending Christmas with...well...your mum and her new chap. It somehow seems wrong to intrude on newlyweds Christmas celebrations, even though I know she wouldn't see it like that, but the last thing you want to be on Christmas day is a gooseberry! Last year was my first Christmas as a singleton, and to be frank I was dreading it. Princess had kindly invited me to spend the day with her family (Momma and Poppa Smurf as I affectionately call them), but I didn’t really want to do Christmas at all. I’d had a crappy couple of years, and quite frankly I wasn’t excited about the holiday season, even less so with the fact that my family had become so disjointed in the last year. I really just wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening.
Now around this time my older brother and his long term girlfriend split up. Big bro was in a similar head space to me in as much as Christmas was pretty low on his list of priorities, so we decided that I’d go to him in Birmingham and we’d have a low key “non-Christmas”. The Middle Bro was working out on the oil rig over Christmas so wouldn’t be around, and the Baby Bro was doing the shuttle run between families, but promised to call in and bring our gorgeous nephew along to see us. My mum wasn’t best pleased, but she’s pretty good at understanding that we all lead our own lives, and we’re quite independent as individuals. It’s something she struggles with every day as she’s the type of person who’ll speak to her parents every day. If she’s lucky she’ll see me once a week, the middle bro once a month, and the big bro and baby bro once in a blue moon. It’s not that we don’t want to see her...it’s just that they raised us well, to ensure that we can look after ourselves, and so that’s what we do.
So the morning of Christmas 2009 started in the house I shared with Princess...I was woken by her at about 7am jumping up and down on my bed, shouting “get up, get up, GET UP! It’s Christmaaaaas!”...this is actually trickier than it sounds on a waterbed. Jumping on a waterbed is actually a lot like treading water...you don’t really get anywhere, it makes your legs ache and it’s basically a cardiovascular workout in itself, so I was actually quite impressed by her energy levels at the ungodly hour she decided to wake me. Princess has a rather odd habit of invading your most personal space (i.e. your bed) at a time when your defences are at their very lowest (i.e you’re asleep). She will climb under the duvet without checking that:
a) You’re wearing PJ’s
b) You are actually even alone in the bed!
She’ll then proceed to natter in your ear hole until there’s no possible way you’ll be able to get back to sleep. She also has a habit of inviting other people to climb into bed with you. Now, I’m pretty okay with most of my girly friends jumping into bed with me, however on this particular Christmas morning, it was her boyfriend she was calling on to “come jump on the bed and help me wake her up”. For one terrifying moment I though he might actually have been about to, until he entered the room and my very naked back, just visible above the duvet, alerted him to the one thing Princess always seems to be oblivious to...I do not sleep in Pyjamas. I do not sleep in anything. I don’t know who was more terrified of the prospect of him joining Princess’s “wake up” game upon this revelation, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it was him, although only just, and only because I was too sleepy to fully appreciate the awkwardness of the situation. After ten minutes of excited jostling and squealing, Princess finally managed to rouse me, and with an offer of a brew from her (now somewhat traumatised) boyfriend I begrudgingly made my way downstairs for breakfast followed by present opening.
After the presents had been distributed and opened I showered and changed and prepared myself to make the journey to Big Bro’s house. I’ll admit, I was feeling a little tender after a Christmas Eve drinking session in town, which may have added a certain element of torture to the journey I was about to make, however I can pretty safely say that the true horror that was this early morning journey was mainly a direct result of the fact that my co-pilot for the ride was Bryn, my german shepherd/collie cross. Bryn doesn’t travel well, and forty minutes of non stop high pitched whining and yappy barks shreds your nerves...with or without a hangover. I love that dog. Seriously, I’m daft for him, and he’s precious to me, but there were several occasions where I considered pulling over and letting him out so he could go and play with the traffic on the M6. When I finally arrived at Big Bro’s house it occurred to me that I had no idea what he’d got planned for the day. As it was, we spent the day watching DVD’s and playing Rock Band on the Xbox. Christmas dinner was a modest affair – left over Pizza Hut Meat Feast which we failed to successfully heat up in the microwave. For some reason parts of the pizza remained positively chilled, whilst others were basically nuclear...both of us ended up with mouth blisters on boxing day as a result. It was the most surreal Christmas day ever, but quite possibly also one of my favourites!
The question now though, is what do I do this year? Baby Bro and his girlfriend have now split up, so there maybe one more person to entertain...perhaps I should have the family round to mine? Perhaps having three of the four siblings around will make it feel more like the family Christmases we used to have? Perhaps I’d enjoy Christmas on my own? Perhaps I’ll have a hot date for Christmas by then...but whatever happens I need to start planning now, because I know my mum well, and it really won’t be long before the nagging starts!
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