Categories: uncategorized
Date: 02 January 2005 11:28:30
At last I have five spare minutes. I have locked the Smudgelets outside to get a bit of "fresh air" :D. I must just remember that my bath is running and I do not particularly want to wash the bathroom floor.
So how was Christmas? I was really disappointed that my sister and B-I-L were too unwell to join us, although they came on Boxing Day (despite not really being well enough) and we had a second Christmas then. Part of my disappointment was because I felt bad for them, feeling so ill and feasting on the only thing they had in the house which was beans on toast on Christmas Day, and because I so wanted to see them. The other part of my disappointment was frustration - they had the vegetables, and I had to do a mad Christmas Eve rush to the shops to buy some replacements; I had to fit cooking the Christmas Dinner single handed into our hectic Christmas morning schedule; and most serious of all, the main reason they started coming to spend Christmas with us was because Dad hates the celebrations and is at his most difficult on Christmas Day, especially with the children. What would we do?
Dad was dreadfully disappointed too. He was feeling very low, coming to terms with a future of declining health and faculties and seemingly perpetual chest and water infections, and amazingly for the first time he was looking forward to going back with them for a change of scene. But would you believe it - he pulled out all the stops and was delightful this Christmas. He focussed all his energy and attention on the children and the activities of the day, had us in stitches with his impersonation of the Child Catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and was great company - which made it all far easier for me too because he would play with the children while I did the dinner.
The celebrations began, as always, with the Christmas Eve service at my church. I was enlisted to play along on the piano. The organ was slightly out of tune, but as I told someone who commented, it fitted well with the singing :D Then home to set out the tray for Santa. Apparently we had to leave him a cake AND mince pie as well as a carrot and glass of sherry.... fortunately Tiddles insisted that it was really not a good idea to leave the tray in the farthest corner of the room in case Santa couldn't find it. God bless you, Tiddles! Fortunately too this year they were so tired that they went straight to sleep and didn't wake which meant Santa could call round a bit earlier this year. Of course, we knew at bedtime that he was over India because we'd watched him on the NORAD Santa tracking radar and webcam. The magic of that was lovely. I can't be doing with the idea that believing in Santa is lying to children. A bit of magic and imagination can enrich childhood if done properly, and recapturing it as adults can enrich adult life too. And if it encourages my children to question what I say and sift through whether they want to believe what I teach them about Jesus as a result, then all well and good. I don't want my children to believe just because I say it, I want their faith to come from their own encounters with God.
Christmas morning was a study in irony. You know how children wake their parents at the crack of dawn with their stockings? Well, because my children are not allowed in my bedroom and because I need to be at my most patient on Christmas Day (for dealing with Dad!), we have the deal that the opening of the stockings should be a secret affair, conducted quietly and surrepticiously in an attempt to open everything without waking mummy :) They enjoy the secrecy, and I enjoy the lie in! Then we get the excitement when they show me what they got. Well, this year I had anticipated viewing the stockings at 6, getting everyone washed and dressed and taking Dad his cup of tea and getting him up, preparing the dinner and putting the turkey in, opening a couple of presents, and then making our way leisurely to church for the 10am service. Hmmm.... hoist by my own petard - the children opened their presents so silently that I didn't wake until after 8 !!!
The church service was lovely - in Dad's new church which was totally converted into the inn and stable in Bethlehem. It was such a friendly and informal affair. First of all the microphones weren't working properly, and the fellow who controls them from the back wasn't paying attention and didn't realise, despite the minister calling him by name and asking him to check they were on! Then came the lighting of the Advent candles. This was hilarious. The four children present were asked to go and help, but there was no taper to hold the flame, and only half a dozen matches, which kept blowing out, or burning so low that the children blew them out for fear of burning their fingers. Three of the candles took the flame and then petered out, so that the wreath had to be turned round and round, lighting and relighting them. Finally, when all five candles were gaily burning and three of the children returned to their seats with slightly singed fingers, the minister kept Tiddles at the front to ask him what the candles represented.. as he knew he'd known them the previous evening. Now, the minister is our minister from our home church. He knows Tiddles. He knows him well. And he's been a primary school teacher. How on earth did he expect him to remember something like that from one day to the next?
Dinner was, surprisingly, a great success, if I say so myself.. despite me nearly strangling my BIL for phoning up to tell me how to cook the sprouts properly! Delia and I had it in hand, thank you very much.
The presents were, of course, limited in number.. which was a good thing. This year the children actually appreciated and played with what they had instead of getting overwhelmed with the present-fest. They were both delighted with their main presents from Santa: Smudgelet had two remote control trains for his train set which he has proceeded to bore everyone with tales of ever since; Tiddles had a proper tool kit, designed for the slightly smaller hand and beautifully put together in a wooden display box. He has really won my admiration, actually. He used his Christmas money to buy a plank of wood and is making a treasure chest for his (rather unappreciative) brother. Of course it is the first time he has really used a proper saw. He cut his first line, and it was at an angle. He was distressed to realise that he would have to cut it again to get it straight, and was tempted to give up there and then, but persevered and had another go, viewing it as all good practise sawing. SEVEN attempts it took him, and all afternoon... and a rather shortened plank of wood... but eventually he achieved a perfectly straight line at the correct angle. I couldn't help him because he's left handed and I'm right handed, but I was ultimately glad because he learnt far more and gained far more from doing it himself. He's jolly proud of his own perseverance. But boy, did his arm ache! Only six more pieces to cut!
I had many lovely presents, nothing particularly out of the ordinary, but lovely nevertheless. Most lovely of all was that Dad (after a rather heavy hint from my friend M, to whom I had dropped a rather heavy hint) had bought me the most beautiful traidcraft jewellery box. Even though I had been half expecting it, it was still a delight. Neither my sister nor my father could quite understand: Dad sent me into his room to choose something from my mum's jewellery box to put in it. I opened the box, which is where mum and I both used to keep our jewellery when I was in my teens. And there was true treasure - a jumble of her and me, of her treasures and mine, so mingled that neither of us used to be able to remember which belonged to whom. And there she was, all of a sudden, standing behind me and peeping in over my shoulder. I reached into the box and laid a finger on the lovely butterfly brooch she used to wear on her lapel and promptly burst into tears. Both my sister and my Dad thought I was upset and wanted to comfort me, they just couldn't understand that they were mainly tears of happiness for a lovely relationship that death just cannot take away from me. They were tears I actually wanted to cry and which I'm crying now as I type. The only sadness in them was the knowledge that one day I will lose Dad too, and the sort-of perverse longing to lose him when he is a complete person rather than lose him to something like Alzheimers.
The celebrations have continued with playing of new games, purchasing of batteries, trips to the pantomime (Oh yes we did!) and setting off another speed camera by going at the traffic speed rather than looking at the road signs.... mainly because my cough had worsened and each cough was having a rather disasterous effect on my bladder (Sorry, TMI!) That was a Christmas present I could well do without, as finances are rather horribly short at the moment.
But it has to be said that the best Christmas present of all - the love of God and the love of my family, especially those Smudgelets of mine!