Christmas isn’t always Christmassy but this year is, at our house because for the first time my 4 kids and two grand daughters are all here. My elder daughters are the mums of the two toddler-girls. If you think I am not old enough to have grandchildren, you are right. I was a child bride when I married for the first time, - and a cradle-snatcher the second time.
So we get up in good time to put the turkey in the Aga, only to discover it has conked out for the first time in 13 years we’ve been at this house. What a bastard.
Julianne, my pulchritudinous next of kin, spent half an hour lying on the kitchen floor with a screwdriver. After she’d finished her cocktail, she set about trying to mend the Aga. I’m not really into technical stuff like hanging pictures and mending Agas, so Jules is the one with a tool kit of her own and a certain Aussie “three wheels on my wagon/never say die, make my bloody day” attitude, useful for times such as these. Luckily we also have an electric oven. Our butcher does four sizes of Turkey: Pathetic, Normal, Huge and Fuck Off. We had a Fuck Off one, so it was going to take 4 hours, and the Aga had thrown a tantrum. Luckily, after a short prayer service in the kitchen and all of us holding hands and thinking lovely thoughts, the pilot light popped on, and the turkey was doomed.
If you’re not married yet, don’t marry one of those pooffy little wives that can’t mend washing machines without calling a bloke and who keep squirting perfume on themselves. Get one like mine, she smells nice without perfume (saving a fortune) can come in from shopping and change into a ball gown and full make-up in five minutes, AND knows how to set the burglar alarm or jump-start the car with those funny red and black wires, which I don’t.
Anyway, so she’s got dinner (lunch) for ten on the table, hot, with everything perfect and all I’ve got to do is carve Horace. I thought I’d give it a name this year. One of my two four-year-old grand daughters throws a fit because the other one has pulled her cracker first, - and is now howling and screaming the place down. She is banished upstairs, by her mum. We’re all trying to ignore it, and ultimately it’s Grandpa Mike who goes upstairs to calm the furrowed brow and coax the unfairly pre-crackered child down to the lunch table.
Now I’m on piano duty. The little kids have both got fairy outfits on (good job they are both girls) and are grand-jete-ing around the front room as I play selections from Coppelia (which they don’t know) and Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (which they do). Next year, they are getting tool kits.
Have a great Christmas, you guys. Don’t grumble unless you really deserve to. I’m off to escalate myself to the next level of alcohol poisoning ready for this evening. My son –in-law, Peder and some of the rest of the family enjoy a bit of a jam, so I bet the ukeleles will be coming out.
Don’t forget, - Christmas is when you have to be nicer to each other than usual, so if you feel like kneeing someone in the bollocks, do it with a smile and buy them a drink afterwards.
Love,
Postman Batt
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Thanks Mike! Was an entertaining Blog/Newsletter, as always.
ReplyDeletevery merry contemplative Xmas to you, the craftswoman you've married, and also to your children and grandfairies. :)
Hans
Great Blog. I just joked on Twitter, that Flo might sing about your Aga-Cooker when she finished cooking. I didn't expect it to play the leading role in this blog.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of cooking: I gave my mother two iron pans this year. she was so happy and tries to pursuade us to eat eggs, fish or chicken for supper (we usually don't eat warm in the evening). But she loves her new pan's.
Oh dear, my waistline is in danger again.
Next year she will get a home trainer.
Great fun to read this :) Your wife's skills are definately worth to be known, special wishes for her and joyful holidays and 2010 to you all, including little fairies!
ReplyDeleteSanni
Can tell who wears the trousers in your house and good on her for it!!! Nothing better than being able to fix something yourself especially when all around think you are a mere female who is scared to break a fingernail!!!!
ReplyDeleteThat said, you were very kind in placating your tearful little fairy! I hope Horace was all he was cracked up to be and you all had a lovely day!
Tracybob