2007-01-03
Christmas – ah, that’s a time for families ,eh? I suppose we all have our idea of what the ‘family’ is though: to me my family are my wife and children, my parents and my brother and sister. I don’t really want to include my wife’s bothers and sisters and partners and certainly not their children, and could do without my siblings’ offspring. But then I don’t often see much of the family I came from, and I see too much of the family I married into. Christmas Day there were fifteen of us for a late lunch, by Boxing Day four more had been added. But to be honest – with one or two notable exceptions – it passed much better than I expected and I only resorted to counting the framed photographs on the walls the once (in other years I’ve done it two or three times as when you get up around 400 you can’t be sure you’re counting accurately). This year I made it 481 – with 184 on the staircase alone. And I have to admire the way my mother-in-law puts it all together every year – she really turned out a splendid series of feasts for us all. If I sound churlish and ungrateful then I castigate myself. Give it another couple of years when the horrible children have grown up a little and I might just start to look forward to it…We had a party at the house for Hogmanay. Twenty minutes before everyone started to arrive Lynne and I were sitting hoping no-one would bother. We’d decided to host a party after last year’s New Year when at the last minute we had to leave our daughter home-alone and later found her wandering the streets looking for a party to go to on her own. Get people to come to us and she could have friends round too we thought. As it turned out she was invited elsewhere and most of her friends were either away or unable to get out of their home, and as the parents of those friends who were away are also friends of ours the invite list was looking a bit sketchy. In fact it had started to look like the only people who were definitely coming were those in the category of ‘we have to invite them because they live next door to/ are friends with X and they’d be insulted if they weren’t invited too’ (You understand that in each case the X proved unable to come themselves). Lynne had already started down the train of thought of ‘We do have friends don’t we? I mean, all of these people really do have genuine reasons for not being able to come don’t they? It isn’t that they’ve gone off us?…’ We checked through the no-show list and concluded that we’re not social lepers, just a little unfortunate that most of the people we like had decided to take skiing holidays or been stuck with ageing relatives they were being compelled to entertain themselves.
But again – it turned out fine. Well actually it turned out absolutely atrocious, weather-wise. The big celebration and fireworks in town were cancelled because of the storm force winds and the torrential rain, and we gained a few people because of that – if you’re supposed to be going to a fancy corporate hospitality shin-dig and it’s cancelled what better alternative can there be than to turn up at our house unexpected? Well there probably were alternatives but people arrived soaked to the skin, clutching the customary bottle of wine/whisky, a lump of coal and some shortbread/chocolates and hoped to be allowed in. The mulled wine went down well, and we said goodbyes to the last sometime around 4 a.m.
But as the bells chimed in the New Year I was to be found alone in the kitchen comforting a weeping woman. Although they’ve hardly been out since she died the parents of little Susan (who died aged not quite 12, a couple of years ago) decided they should try to socialise. But when it came to the celebration, and after seeing how our Catherine has grown up over the last two years, Annie couldn’t take it and fled to cry away from the crowd.
Christmas, and New Year, that’s a time for families, eh? And how hard it is when you’ve lost someone. How cruel a time when you can’t hug your child, and look forward to her future, even the year ahead.