My tips on how to do it right in 2018
I trust you enjoyed the merriest of Christmases with halls duly decked, chestnuts roasting on a duly safeguarded fire and lashings of comfort and joy. If that sentence accurately describes your yule pat yourself soundly on the back for you have achieved the truly miraculous. If on the other hand you found more than a few flies in your Christmas ointment you might benefit from my heartfelt list. Lessons for Christmas future: Refrain from toasting Santa royally at breakfast. Excitement is rife. Enthusiasm reigns. Nothing feels more fitting than a bubbly beverage. Yet do your level best to give the prosecco a wide berth at least until what can reasonably be termed “pre-lunch”.
Plunging too enthusiastically into vats of intoxicating liquor when sprout-bottoms have yet to be scored and spuds peeled is unwise. Sharp knives and sozzled cooks do not mix.
Use your phone to capture a pic of your massacred thumb wrapped in a blood-soaked tea towel. Use it again to photograph – with their consent, of course – the other wounded domestic gods and goddesses adorning your local A&E. Promise yourself to stick to the soft stuff in future. However high the pile of emergency pressies you bought in case some munificent soul should bestow a gift upon you without you having reciprocated, you will never have acquired enough.
I know you had no idea (a) your daughter’s mother-in-law (b) the doctor’s receptionist and (c) your boss’s unfriendly secretary would all descend upon you waving gift-wrapped offerings.
Is it inevitable, though, to resort to re-packaging the scented candle from the daughter’s mother-in-law and inflict it on the doctor’s receptionist? Be honest: this happens every year. Shell out for more stand-by gifts and save yourself hot flushes and embarrassment. If you can’t manage to do it with good grace forbear from inviting vegetarians and vegans to partake of your Christmas feast. Asking them in the full knowledge that they don’t do turkey and then looking furious as you dish up non-dairy macaroni cheese is inhospitable, borderline rude.
You have two choices: practise your signature nut roast until you can serve it with a genuine smile or ask non-turkey eaters to bring their own fare.
Look at it this way: they will probably be relieved to tote along something suitable in Tupperware if it means missing out on your utterly revolting fake mac ’n’ lord-knows-what. It is not romantic and you won’t hear this in any Christmas ditties but vouchers are most definitely the way forward.
No one really wants bath oil, a pair of slippers or a novelty sock. Even more emphatically, they don’t want the one of YOUR choice. To avoid pretending not to see abject disappointment etched upon the beloved features of your nearest and dearest do what Cuba Gooding Jr suggested in the movie Jerry Maguire: “Show them the money!”
Try it next year and watch relief spread rapidly from ear to ear. No fake thanks. No false rapture. No utterance of the hollow phrase: “That’s just what I wanted!” Those who adore you will ignore point (4) and bestow all manner of stuff upon you. It will not fit. It will smell strongly of your least favourite aroma. You will have read it already. You will have one just like it in your wardrobe.
You will be mortally offended that the purchaser has known you for five decades and could possibly imagine you would willingly give house room to such an item. Yet because you, Gentle Reader, have been beautifully brought up you will beam beatifically and do your very best impression of somebody so thrilled to bits it hurts. Anticipate an argument. Why not? It is that hardy perennial gripe with your parents/siblings/ dearest chums that erupts every year upon prolonged exposure to one another. It is not that you don’t love each other. It is simply that hanging out in each other’s company for over an hour results in both sides exhuming ancient slights and prehistoric hostilities. Insults are exchanged. Relatives take sides.
The Nigella-inspired pine-cone bestrewed table becomes a repository for potentially lethal missiles. Eventually you are told to go to your room and calm down. You retort that you are 63, it is your house and no one can force you to go to your room if you don’t want to. You are aware that you sound like an angry three-year-old. You love the Queen’s speech. You love it more passionately every year. Maybe it is because you have been binge-watching The Crown? Maybe it is because you admire Her Majesty more with every passing minute?
Whatever the reason you are glued, standing to attention and will continue to cherish the moment and tut at anyone who dares to speak, sneeze or cough during transmission. Babies are, quite rightly, banished until the sovereign has finished. Harness the goodwill that flows from having imbibed several dozen alcoholic libations. Savour the sensation that comes from having mixed hard and soft liquor, snowballs, fizz, spirits, cocktails and medicinal G&Ts. There will be a few moments when you’ve never felt sprightlier, better disposed towards your descendants or more confident of your own beauty and sense of humour. Relish this juncture.
All too soon it will be followed by an overwhelming urge to bash your brother-in-law over the head with some stray Lego, take off all your clothes and sing I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas or lie down with your head in the lemon syllabub for a light snooze. You will end up succumbing to all three urges. Fortunately your bro-in-law will be equally inebriated and can be counted upon to have forgotten all about it in the morning. Don’t be drawn into a debate about which film to watch. You will be snoring by minute 12. Try to fall asleep last. That way no one can make a recording of your snores and post them on social media. Leftovers are weird. At first they are purest nectar. “Wow!” you think, ferrying a wodge of cold turkey festooned with a clump of cranberry sauce and a clod of cold sprout towards your mouth. “Nothing on earth could be more delicious.”
Next morning, something subtle has affected your taste-buds. Yesterday’s manna has become today’s torture. “Heavens,” you think, creaking with carbs, “Why do we bother with turkey at all? What a dry and tasteless fowl! And as for Christmas pudding? An abomination!” Never rule out the soothing properties of a brisk walk. Make sure it is in the opposite direction from the brisk walks undertaken by the flesh of your flesh. Waving a cheery bye-bye as you head north-west and they stride off south-east is bliss. Shouting the jaunty words: “See you this evening. Not sure when we’ll be back” is delightful. I know it’s raining. It’s always raining. Wear your sou’wester. Do not underestimate the power of board games to bring out the competitive spirit of the retiring violets. Quiet individuals who haven’t shouted so much as boo to a goose all year become fiendishly Lord Sugaresque as they send the whole Monopoly board into escrow. And no, I have no idea what escrow means. Gentle Reader, I am well aware that you will ignore my sage advice and do exactly as you have always done next Christmas. That is your tradition and indeed your human right. Do not, however, say you haven’t been warned.