Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

 

We’re not great on Christmas decorations in our house. 

His Nibs, for example, will have absolutely nothing to do with the whole business, and insists that there’s no need for a tree, no sense in fairy lights, and absolutely no rational explanation for the two foot high Santa I like to stand in the hall, to be knocked over every time the door is opened, or a waggy tailed dog walks past.

I’m not the most Christmassy of souls myself.  It’s not that I don’t like Christmas, I do.  But only when the Christmas season has actually arrived.  I wouldn’t even consider putting the tree up in the last weekend of November, which seems to be quite popular these days. 
And I can’t stand when people start wishing me a merry Christmas from the 8^th of December on.  It’s always a struggle not to shout “It’s not bloody Christmas yet!”
A few years ago, after a few accusations of being grinchy and a general misery arse, I picked 15^th December as the beginning of Christmas.  I decided that’s when I’ll stop whinging about its being too early, and agree that fair enough, it’s Christmas.

So in my little world, Christmas has finally arrived.

 Merry Christmas, everyone.

I decided to put up the tree at the weekend. 

We’ve had our Christmas tree since 1998. 
Yes, it's an artificial one.  I never fancied dragging a real tree up and down the flights of stairs to our various flats. 
And almost as soon as we got the house we got the dogs.  Only a complete moron would put a real tree in a room with our dogs.  I know what  they do to every tree they pass, and I'm not putting one in the house.

Anyway, when I put it up last year and took a step back to admire my handiwork, I was distressed to realise that it had had its day, and it had become completely ragged and sad looking.

By the time I realised this, all the decorations were on, and there was no way I was stripping it again and starting all over. 

So last year was the Christmas of the shabbiest tree I’ve ever seen.

I set about buying a new tree last Thursday, when I was off work but was very much supposed to be involved in another project entirely.

I chose one in a shop near us, but of course they didn’t have the tree I wanted in that branch (pardon the pun).  So I phoned His Nibs and demanded that he purchase the tree in Dublin before he came home.

He rang me back from the shop.

“How big is this fecking tree?” he asked.  “The box is enormous.”

“Seven feet tall”. 

“Seven feet?  Seven feet?  Have you gone mad?  What are we going to do with a seven feet tall tree?”

“Well” I told him, quite sourly “if history is any teacher, I think we can safely say that “We” aren’t going to do anything with it.

I’m fairly sure I’ll put it up, decorate it, make the place nice and festive, and then after Christmas take it all down again and put it back in the attic.”

“Love, how are you going to decorate the top of a seven feet tree?  You’re not seven feet tall.”

“Ah now” I told him reasonably “Sure aren’t I at least five and a half feet tall?  And my arms are definitely eighteen inches long, it’ll be no problem.”

“I don’t think it works like that” he told me.  “Mainly because your arms aren’t growing from the top of your head, so you can’t actually reach seven feet into the air.  But if you want it, fine, you will get it.  I’ll be home soon.”
It never crossed either of our minds that we could use a stepping stool, for some reason.

When he arrived home, on the 12^th of December, three days before my “beginning of Christmas” date, my curiosity overtook me and nothing would satisfy me but to open the box for a look.

Then the tree couldn’t be got back into the box in any sort of reasonable way, so the box was sitting under the stairs with branches poking out and being generally messy and annoying looking.  It was annoying me so much that the following day I had to put the stupid thing up.

His Nibs was in work, and rather than wait for him to return, then have the annual argument about how he should go up into the attic to get the decorations, why he should go up, when he should go up, and so on and so on, that I decided to do it myself.

I was on the second step of the stepladder when I realised that it was very unsteady.  I checked the catch, the legs, the stoppers, but could find no reason for the shaking of the ladder.  It turned out that it was caused by a large woman shaking with fear because of a terror of heights.

The whole business took fecking hours.

I was delighted to find the silver pine cones I bought in the pound shop the first year we lived together, when I was a student. 

I can’t believe that I still have decorations that were bought in an actual pound shop, rather than a Euro Store.

Then I found the gorgeous little silk decorations I bought from a woman in Laos years ago.  Again, it’s my beloved His Nibs who gave me the memory.  I distinctly remember him giving out about how it was only October, and we were on our holidays, quite a long way from home, and still Christmas was invading.  And I told him to belt up or the tiny seller would think he was giving out about her, and stuffed them in my rucksack.

I found the little snowmen I bought in a Christmas market in Brussels the year my sister was so pregnant with my beloved nephew that she couldn’t come home, and His Nibs and I went to see them instead.

All very sentimental, so far.

When I finally, eventually, got what felt like thousands of decorations onto the tree, I discovered that the fairy lights had given up the ghost.  I didn’t get new ones until the following day. 

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to get fairy lights around the top of a seven foot tree, when your own husband is standing chanting “I told you so” in the background and you haven't the wit to get a stepping stool?

Finally I was finished.

I haven’t a minutes peace.  I sat down to watch an episode of Frasier yesterday, and I stood up at least seven times in the twenty five minutes it was on.

I’m constantly seeing two of the same bauble, side by side.  Or two purple ones too near each other, or too many baubles on one branch, and none at all on another.

I won’t be happy with it until well after the New Year.  Just in time to take it all down again, as usual.

 

 

Happy Christmas, dear readers.  Thank you so much for reading the blog .

 

 

 

Dear Readers

Only a week left in the year.

I started blogging at the very end of May. I don't know why I chose that particular time, but it could be something to do with the following.

A week after our lovely Dad died, I was to attend the last weekend workshop of a writing course I'd been doing in Maynooth NUI, on Creative Writing for Publication. That Saturday morning, I woke up and told His Nibs that I wasn't going. He agreed it might be a bit soon. I told him that there was no point, that I felt like I'd never write anything again.

He got all feisty and pushed me out of the bed and into my car and sent me to class, because he worried that if I started that nonsense of "I'll never write again" that I actually wouldn't.  And if nothing else, it keeps me quiet.

I hadn't done my homework, and we had to bring in a piece of work, so I randomly chose "The Ransom Note" from the Writing folder on my laptop and printed it off.

A few weeks later, it was the very first piece I blogged. I’d  got a great reaction to it in class, and couldn't believe it when people actually roared laughing at it.

I've written for years, and never sent anything out into the world before.

I decided that feck it, I'd start a blog. If it didn't work out, what harm? I could stop any time I wanted to.

Sometimes, when the days have been dark and the laughs few and far between, the blog saved me from falling apart completely.  Sometimes, of course, it didn't.

But every little event became an opportunity to vent, and to try to raise a laugh.
If you're going to write a blog, you have to keep going, I think, or everyone loses interest. It gave me the discipline to sit down and write something hopefully funny, a couple of times a week, and to draw me out of my misery.

And you, dear kind readers, were so receptive and supportive and positive about it all, that it made me want to keep going.

And so here is my wish for you this Christmas season

-           I hope you don't get a single talc and soap set on Tuesday morning.

-           I hope your turkey comes out of the oven the same shape as it went in, without collapsing, burning or still being pink in the middle.

-           I hope the toys are easily constructed and you don’t have to stay up until four in the morning putting things together in complete silence, lest you wake the kids.

-           I hope you have Quality Street or whatever your favourite Christmas chocolate is.

-           I hope you win all the Christmas games in your house and get to stick out your tongue at the bossy person who makes you all play them when you could be eating and watching television.  Unless of course that person is you (it's me in my house!) in which case well done on entertaining the family.

-           I hope some helpful guest or family member volunteers to do the washing up after the dinner – if they do, let them, for God’s sake.  There’s no glory in being a martyr about this.

-           I hope you get that great present you’ve been hinting at since August and not some off- the-wall mental thing that cost twice what you wanted but is only half as useful.

-           I hope your Christmas gúna, or jumper, is lovely on you, and remains so after you’ve had your dinner.  Mine tends to start stretching and sort of collapsing in a very alarming manner.

-           I hope the children suddenly turn into angels and eat their dinner, and don’t break any of their toys and then roar the house down on the day.

-           On a similar vein, I hope the spirit of goodwill to all overtakes your children and they don’t have a single fight.  Particularly one where one tries to brain the other with their new monster truck and you end up in Casualty.

-           I hope you get the perfect amount of sprouts.  As far as I know, the perfect amount is either none or about two pounds of them to yourself.

-           I hope, if you’re church going, that the priest doesn’t go on for too long while the children ask loudly if he’s ever going to stop so they can go home and play with their toys.

-           I hope that the family members that you love so dearly don’t make you want to tie them up with tinsel and feck them out into the garden for themselves.

-           I hope the weather stays nice and mild so you can drive to see whoever you want and have a great time, and don’t get stuck in your house with the Grinch – my own constant worry.

-           I hope you don’t get any unexpected presents, so you don’t have to give away your wine or chocolate in return for a box of handkerchiefs.

 

Most of all I hope that you all have a lovely time, and enjoy every minute of it all.

I also hope you’ll continue to read my blog next year and I really hope you enjoy reading it as  much as I enjoy writing it.

 
And I hope for great things for all of us and for a better year next year – even if this year has been brilliant for you.
 
Happy Christmas to you all – I’ll take a blogging holiday now, so you can have a rest from
my moaniness at this happy time.
 
Thanks a million for reading my stuff.

 Cathriona

 

Chris-stress

Another fascinating online story today.
Travelodge, the hotel chain, commissioned a study into Christmas, the run up to it, the stress it causes, etc. etc.

Fascinatingly enough, half of men think women exaggerate the stress of Christmas, while a third think they could do a  better job of organising the festivities than their lady friend.

I’d like to see His Nibs effort at doing a better job than me. He wanted us to get a Marks and Spencer "Dine in for Two for €12.50" this year. 
The time he was sent to town for the selection boxes he ate two bars out of one of them on the way home. 
And even though he has to come up with only two presents, he doesn’t actually buy either of them.  I buy one, and take him around the shops pointing at the things I want for my own gift.

Having said that, I’m not a woman who sits up in the middle of the night yelping because I’ve forgotten to order a turkey, or starts grating bread into crumbs for the freezer in November. Because I’ve only made Christmas dinner once in my entire life, and that was just for His Nibs and me and one easy going guest, so it made damn all difference whether it was a success or not.  I suppose it wasn’t.

The roast potatoes were lovely, the gravy was instant, the turkey inexplicably came out of the oven looking like a large pork chop, having collapsed in on itself, and the stuffing was lost in the debacle, having squirted out of the turkey and landed in the cooking fat.  But I didn’t get stressed.  It was a dinner, no big deal.  I thought I was a bit of a hero, actually, to have made the effort at all.

And to be honest, I consider any dinner with Brussels sprouts a roaring success.  I didn’t care if the turkey came out of the oven in flitters, as long as there were sprouts.

My mother, who has run Christmas in the Murphy homestead for forty five years, is actually reasonably easy going also.  Fair enough, nobody is allowed into the gift zone (the sitting room) until fully dressed and fit to meet the world.  Shiny hair and makeup are encouraged – at half eight in the morning, can you imagine me?

But the year I suggested that we break with a lifetime's tradition, and resist opening our presents until three in the afternoon, when my brother would return from the long journey that visiting his daughters on Christmas morning necessitates, she just kicked in and went along with it. 

And she never discourages us from having a drinky very early in the day.  Maybe it’s because she is a teetotaller, and doesn’t take the difference between a glass of wine at lunchtime and a large brandy at eleven in the morning seriously.

I’m not from a family that gets into a massive state about Christmas.  I don’t really understand people letting it take over their lives for three months.

Every year, like every woman, and some of the men I know (very much excluding His Nibs, obviously) I make a list at least a page long of people who I need presents for.  I quite like buying presents, once I know what I want to get people, and if only every shop wasn’t packed to the rafters with other shoppers, Christmas music of ever increasing volume, and diminishing stock supplies.

I try to finish the gift buying about a week before Christmas,  then I wrap them all in one sitting, cutting fiddly bits of ribbon and curling and twisting it and sticking it to the paper in a way nobody except me cares about.  That part is a bit tedious, but there’s a great sense of achievement when it’s all finished.

 

I don’t get into an anxiety attack over it.  It’ll be fine.  All the people I buy presents for are quite fond of me, I hope, and probably wouldn’t bat an eyelid if I didn’t do it.  There’s no need to go into a state of collapse.

The Travelodge study also revealed that the week before Christmas is the worst of the year for sleep.  Apparently lots of people lie awake worrying about the festivities to come.

Now, I am not a bit surprised that some people wake up during the night in a sweat of panic about whether or not there’ll be anything under the tree for the children on Christmas morning.

Imagine my surprise when I read on to discover that the concerns at the top of the lists of those in the study are;

Keeping guests entertained

Planning meals

Getting embarrassed by a partner or child.

There’s a few quick answers to this.

Feck the guests, they’re getting their dinner, it’s up to them to do the entertaining.  The least they can do is tell stories and bring games (I recommend Cluedo, nothing like a good murder mystery to get the seasonal goodwill going) and do their share of making the fun.  There’s no such thing as a free lunch.

What planning the meals?  We all know what we’re having.  Just get everyone in the family to be in charge of one thing each, if it’s causing you to lose sleep.  We already have our plan for this year.  I will be in charge of roast potatoes and brussel sprouts.  But that’s because I want to make sure I get the lion’s share of them.

Finally, I don’t have any kids to embarrass me.  But believe me when I tell you, I’m familiar with the pain of having a partner who embarrasses you.  All I can say is that although it’s unlikely that he or she will ever learn to behave at this stage, there’s only so many times they can embarrass you before you stop feeling it.  Don’t worry about it.  One man’s embarrassing partner is another’s life and soul of the party.

Just get over it.  As long as Santy brings what he’s asked for, the rest will sort itself out.  Go to sleep and don’t be panicking over little things. It’ll be grand.