It's been that time of year for the last two months if you are in desperate retail, hoping to make 60% of your turnover in the last few weeks of the year just because people adhere to the Victorian Christmas fantasy.
Why oh why oh why???!!! Why do people HAVE to have a new kitchen or sofa "in time for Christmas"? What is the significance of a new DFS three-piece on the end of the year? Why do we all HAVE to send Christmas Cards to people we haven't seen all year and get back their round-robins about how their son has graduated in Nuclear Physics and their daughter has saved a rain forest and their cat is so cute it has been accepted to front a new cat-food commercial and they had a lovely three weeks in the Maldives in June? Why do we HAVE to try and compete with the bastards who finished their Christmas Present shopping at the end of July and "just have a few bits and bobs to get"? Why do we have to drive past the houses of morons intent on making their houses look like Piccadilly Circus with ridiculous illuminations? Why do people keep trying to bring religion into a perfectly fine Winter-Solstice-End-of-Year Festival?
So, as Noddy Holder's agent treats the wife to a fortnight at Champney's on the strength of another batch of annual PRS cheques, let's celebrate the Winter Solstice, the end of the year with a feast of proper reasons to be cheerful. Apart from Jonah Lewey and his irritating earworm.
One of my best remembrances of Christmas is the smell of the laminated cover of a brand new Rupert Annual in front of a day-time coal fire.
What's your best and worst memories of Christmas?
13 comments:
Childhood memories of Christmas are mainly of elderly ladies bickering. My mother invited round several people who would otherwise be alone. In the afternoon, she vanished to the kitchen to spend several hours cleaning up and cooking again, while my father just vanished.
The best thing about childhood Christmases was gloating over the pile of books I had received. I feel a bit pathetic, now I think about it.
I look forward to the seasonal sound of grumpy old men sounding off poetically. Thank you.
I think my contribution to dear old Raincoaster's site just pipped you this year.
I hope that you are wearing a paper hat as you read this.
There's probably some vaccine against your complaint. Or you could embrace Islam. Or you could go and stay with Vicus, tho' you'd (or we'd - there might be quite a lot of us) end up bickering like Z's oldies.
Best Christmas? The year we laid on a Barmecide Christmas dinner.
Worst Christmas? The year we laid on a Barmecide Christmas dinner.
Best memories were being left completely alone to watch Old Grey Whistle Test on New Year's Eve.
Worst memories were the Boxing Day visits to my aunts.
Best - New bike - all black and grown up.
Worst - when a drunken Kev turned up on for Christmas dinner with a jar of pickled walnuts.
Z: Did you ever get "The Invisible Man"? Could have been about your father.... I don't think Kindle Software will replace the feel and smell of books. I'm officially OLD now.
Vicus: Thankyou. I feel like I've just been congratulated on my rowing technique by Sir Steve Redgrave!
Christopher: A meal that "looks good but doesn't come up to expectations"? So many things fall into that category I'm afraid!
Geoff: Old Grey Whistle Test was always a solitary pleasure. Didn't your Aunt's produce a Yes Album wrapped up in Christmas Paper?
Kaz: I used to dream of a black bike. I suppose "a jar of pickled walnuts" was teacher slang for a car full of drunken teachers?
Could your dictionary fall into this category? I meant a feast with no food, remembering the time we served cheese sandwiches.
I prefer not to think of it. The last dozen or so have all ended in some form of personal or medical disaster. I seem to remember that like everything else, it was better when you were very small. Only recently did my mum confide in me that the 1967 one my sister and I spent at Grandma's was because my parents were glad to get us out of the house. With hindsight, I don't blame them. As a punishment, I'm going to stay with them this year and moan.
Christopher: A Cheese sandwich for Christmas dinner wouldn't come up to expectations here!
Richard: I think you should - and do a screaming fit on the carpet if you don't get an X-Box.
Best Christmas memories - freezing my nuts off going round to Che's for dinner our first year in Prague. Minus 20, but it was glittering and beautiful.
Worst Christmas memories - none really. I love Christmas.
Tiomorous: Minus 20 sound v. cold! I hope you weren't cycling.
The Rupert annual...you're right. It smelled wonderful...and the Broons. And getting dressed under the covers because of the ice on the windows.
Rosie: Welcome! Broons & Oor Wullie were fixtures at Christmas. Why didn't you just turn the central heating up?
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