The Joy of Christmas

The residents of Longwater Road (of which I am one) are in the midst of the annual competition to see who can drain the National Grid most through the month of December. You'd think it was Regent Street the way the lights on the houses twinkle all the colours of the rainbow at you. We feel very inadequate decoration wise in our place in comparison. We've got a little tree festooned in tinsel and fairy lights with a pile of pressies already wrapped beneath it, but that's it. Actually that's one better than we've been allowed most of the years I've lived here. Now that the notorious Ken and his dislike of Christmas has moved out, we can at least have a tree up. I feel better for it. We did put it up as an act of defiance last year, but not in the main bit of the living room... we didn't dare go that far.

I can understand why Ken dislikes Christmas more and more as I get older. The fact that the shops are full of Christmas stuff by the end of August and that the Christmas decorations and music begin in some shops at the start of November, well the whole thing can be quite fatiguing by the time it actually arrives. So far, so obvious. I'm not going to go on about the commercialism of Christmas; there's far too much of that going on everywhere else really. Instead I'd like to talk about what Christmas is like with my family.

This year will be strange as its only me at home with Mum and Dad on Christmas day. As we all grow up there are more and more demands on each of us, and so my brother has decided that after 5 years its time he spent Christmas with his girlfriend's family and my sister has spent many years alternating between the two sets of parents after she got married. It'll be odd being at home without them, but we all have to accept that things move on.

I was the first to upset the routine, when I spent Christmas 1998 in my flat in Croxley with my partner at the time, Paul. It was fantastic and rather liberating not to have to be at home with everyone else. It was odd, but great fun not being home. We'd always done the same things each year and it was good to have a break from that, so that when i did go back the next year it made me appreciate it all the more. I think at the time Mum and Dad were a bit upset and surprised that I didn't want to come home that year, and being the oldest and the first to do it, I think perhaps my absence was felt more keenly that the year my sister didn't come for Christmas. I could be wrong though, you never know with my family!

Now we're all that bit older, Christmas's aren't quite the same. We don't have a stocking any longer that Mum and Dad (sorry Father Christmas!) puts at the end of the bed, and more often than not now Mum and Dad are awake before us and get us out of bed! There is though still something magical about it all. Mum and Dad still put all the presents under the tree when we've gone to bed, so we don't see them until the morning which is kind of cool and exciting. There are still the same routines to follow... no-one goes into the living room until we've had a cup of tea and breakfast. Dad still hands out all the presents to each of us in turn, one by one, and we sit there and watch each other and the reactions. My sister remains the quickest person to unwrap her presents and I'm still frustratingly slow at doing mine, giving them a good feel and trying to guess what it is. Mum and Dad still have a great knack of disguising the things they bought by wrapping them up in boxes or bags to change the shape. I'll never forget the year I opened a up a present to find it was a kettle box. I was so disappointed I didn't open the box for a few minutes until prompted and found out it was The Trial Tin inside! Its up there with the year they gave me a screwdriver as my main present. i was never very good at guessing why I might have these things and when sent off to try and unlock the downstairs loo door with it a bit later on, I was amazed and stunned to new bike sitting in there for me! My Mum and Dad are the best!

Me and my sister still agree the best Christmas ever was 1981. Its a very arbitrary one to choose, since most of them as a kid were magical and special, but it was very special looking back. it was the year before my brother was born and the very first one we had without going to see either set of Grandparents. We got great presents that year. I got a TARDIS tent, made of lovely blue polythene with a blow up light on top and my sister got a Wendy House. We sat in them most of Christmas day having our own little adventures quietly. I had my little wooden chair (the same one my little nephew Luke sits on at home now!) and listened to ABBA-The Visitors on my tape player (its still my favourite ABBA Album to this day) and read the Doctor Who Annual to my Talking K9 (who still talked then!). Marvellous. I think my parents were secretly rather pleased as it gave them a very quiet time that year!

There were some things that were guaranteed every year. My Uncle Tim and Aunty Sue would always buy me the Doctor Who Annual (they were stumped in 1986 when it wasn't released, but to much surprise and glee they bought me the yearbook in the 90's!). My Aunty Linda would ask me to write to her in October with a list of Target books I needed and from my list she'd choose 3 or 4 to get for me. It always wonderful opening the present on Christmas morning and finding out which ones she'd got for me. She never let me down and I have to thank WHSmiths in Yeovil for being so superb at getting the ones I didn't have or couldn't get hold of here throughout the 80s!

My Nan always bought us silly little stocking fillers each year. Nothing very expensive, but always good fun... lighting up Yoyo's, packs of cards and stuff like that. She always gave each of her Grandchildren a little money bag full of loose change she'd saved through the year too. No matter how old we got, she still gave us one... our pocket money she called it. Now she's too old to be going out and doing that, Mum and Dad do it instead and so we still get our bottle of bubbles every year!

It'd be presents in the morning, chocolate, then dinner and before we sat and watched the Queen's Speech and played with our toys, read the Doctor Who annual or whatever in the afternoon. It was always very happy in our house and generally Christmas still is. It might be a quiet day this year, but I'm sure it'll still be great.

And we get to do it all again after Christmas this year too. As I can't spend the day with my wonderful boyfriend, we shall do all our present swapping after Christmas when we get together again. I will miss not being with him, but I know also he's more than worth the wait too.

All that remains now is to wish you all a Happy Christmas!

Simon xx

17h December 2003