My quiet Christmas

How was your Christmas?

Mine was split into two Christmases of very different natures. The first was Sunday 22nd when all of the local family except for Dave went to my daughter’s house for food and presents and celebrations, and 2 year old MsX twirled endlessly and adorably in the middle of the room and told the world, over and over: “I got party dress.” 

My second Christmas began on Christmas Eve with Dave promising to stay in the room for the entirety of It’s a Wonderful Life and to make no comment, such as he has made in the past. e.g. “Why does everyone like this God-awful post war American propaganda?”

He sat reading Ted Krasinsky’s manifesto while I watched the film. He was as good as his word.

On Christmas morning he gave me my stocking 

Reindeer by Dave

and I found inside the fictionalised memoir of Sophie Kinsella’s experience of having a brain tumour (I had given this to Dave two weeks before saying I’d like you to give me this for Christmas.)

I also found various well chosen stocking fillers and the big surprise ( partly because I know it was bought two days before Christmas in Bakewell) which I have since filled with snippets from the garden.

Now filled with snippets from our winter garden 

I love this present and have told him so everyday, to which he has replied, every time,  - “Well let’s go down to the shop and buy ten more! They have them in all shapes and sizes!”

Dave is very generous towards others, though not to himself, and he thinks you (i.e. others) can’t have too much of a good thing.

I think the opposite. One is perfect. Two is too many.

I stayed in bed eating Cadbury’s dairy milk chocolate (found in the stocking) and reading my new book till 10.30 and then got up to cook and eat my Christmas dinner - Jamie Oliver’s easy roast chicken and all the Christmas trimmings - while Dave sat opposite and ate his yoghurt. Actually, that isn’t true. He had eaten his yoghurt earlier and just sat there to keep me company. And my daughter had given me a half bottle of champagne, which is the perfect gift because if it’s only a small bottle, you feel you can open it when you’re on your own. (Dave doesn’t drink.) I love champagne and have decided that when I am rich I shall drink nothing but champagne and margaritas. ( Fortunately I will never be rich so my Quaker principles will never be offended in this department of my life.)

In the afternoon and evening all three of our “kids” rang or FaceTimed - variously from Lake Tahoe in the Sierras, Liverpool, and Sheffield. I loved tha fact that they did.

Since then I have been painting or forcing myself out in the cold and often horrid weather to get exercise and boost my endorphins. 

The only other thing to say is that I have been a devotee of Virgin River for five seasons and have been waiting for the latest season and it is a huge disappointment. It has always been slightly cheesy but in this last series it has disintegrated into wall to wall mush and cheese with rare dramatic incidents to give it (insufficient) grit. It is poor fare. It is badly written, and the writers need telling that watching people snog is an incredibly boring cinematic experience and at least four couples were continually doing this in series 6. Witty banter is what is required of couples, or if you must, conflict: both are far more interesting to the viewer than snogging. End of critique.

So that was Christmas. 

Now I am ready for Spring.

Photo by Isaac