Snowy christmas trees, originally uploaded by xtremepeaks.
Hope you all enjoyed the snow while it lasted. I found the white and quiet really beautiful. You never know, maybe we’ll actually get a white Christmas this year…
Talking of Christmas, we’ve got a gift to give away to the Saddlebacks group – a £10 book token! All you have to do is post your responses to this question:
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve done on Christmas day? Mine would probably be cruising down the Nile in Egypt in the lovely hot sunshine. Not a snowman in sight.
So, post us your interesting Christmas day stories! The winner will be announced in January.
Have a great Christmas and New Year,
Lucy
So, as I sit here on Christmas evening, chewing on half a pale pink sugar mouse, I try to recollect my ‘Christmas pasts’:
Now my Christmases are always pretty similar, the only variation is if we spend it with my Mum’s family or my Dad’s. Two different routines to variate between year after year. At my Dad’s parents’ we drive to their trailer home in their ‘old person resort’; children aren’t aloud to stay there for longer than a week, and neither are dogs. We drive by the same trailers every time, with the same china gnomes and the same plastic herrings lurking around outside them. My Granny has made her Christmas cake, it has been sitting somewhere ever since stir it up Sunday, and the icing is hard in the same way sandstone is. Little snowmen are adorned all over the top, in various different positions, with cheeky expressions on their little round white faces. They have been there for years. Waiting the months out in a box in the cupboard for Christmas day. I remember when I used to want to put them on the cake, choose where they sat.
We eat until we can’t eat any more. The roast, the pudding, then later the ham, the tomatoes, the cucumber and the cake. We play Labyrinth or Cabbie, and sometimes the old Whinnie The Pooh videos are dug out. My Dad’s parents like routine, and in every aspect of my entire relationship with them, there has been routine. Now, with my Mum’s side of the family there is routine too, but in a more haphazard, unplanned way. I’m starting to think all families have a routine that they can’t get out of, whatever it is. With my Mum’s family there are things that have to happen, my Grandpa will get drunk, my Uncle will get angry with my little brother for breaking something, my Aunt will make those squeaking noises she always makes at her parents, my other Uncle will wake up at half one (He never stopped being the teenager of the family), we will watch the Dr Who Christmas Special and if we are at my Grandparents’ my Aunt and Uncle’s dog will kill a chicken.
So no, I have never done anything interesting on Christmas. I have never had the chance to. I feel as if I am never where I would choose to be for Christmas, and it will probably be a long time until I ever am. I am not even excited about the fact that there is actually snow outside, which is something I’ve been dreaming of ever since I knew what snow was. The excitement, the magic of Christmas has gone for me. There have been too many years of unwanted presents and turkey stomach-aches, and it is only just beginning. I’m no Scrooge, I don’t wish others to feel the same way that I do about it, and it’s not that I hate it, it’s just that I have lost it, got bored, grown up.
Ione, what a great entry. I love the detail with which you describe Christmas – even though you may think it isn’t interesting, it gives a fantastic insight into one family’s traditions. How could these little things which make up our lives, relationships, celebrations, ever be boring? Brilliant writing. See you on Tuesday, Lucy.
Great writing Ione!
Ella