Christmas---And The Worst Day Of The Year
Without Prejudice
It's a great time of year and the worst time of year, depending on your perspective. If you are a Christian, it's a time of celebration and gratitude for the birth of Jesus, even though, apparently the date is not the date of his actual birth. I am a believer. I dropped out for a few years as my Mother became an aetheist after my older Brother died.
Before that we were a strong Presbyterian family who always went to church on Sunday's and sang our hymns which I love. I also went to a Church Of England Grammar School and loved the morning assembly with its three hymns, religious traditions and strict rules. The cane was still used in those days. The Catholic Cathedral School was regarded as inferior and there was a certain amount of snobbery at work in the late sixties.
I never ever wore a cross as it seemed to be a Catholic or Foreign tradition. And we all know how the Brits used to regard foreigners. My Father, a Scot, regarded Ireland as a land somewhere west of Scotland. Foreigners were fine by him but my Mother was an Anglophile and regarded anyone with a foreign accent as a " Dago" or a "Wog". She addressed homosexuals as " Poofs" and " Queers".
She liked them as we knew quite a few with Dad being in the entertainment game, and at that time in polite society all homosexuals were pronounced Queer, or denounced, bugger was a real dirty word and so was sod, short for sodomy. Mum told me Lawrence of Arabia was a " poof" and he had lots of adoring little foreign boys following him everywhere, avidly.
After Jamie's death she was not just aetheist but an agnostic and tried to make us all the same. She blasphemed, she swore, she was no longer the polite, religious Woman she had been before his tragic death. We didn't realise that she had Post Traumatic Stress from the War. Dad kept it well hidden. And she died at 53 by her own hand. I often think if she had still been religious and anti depressants had been around then she wouldn't have died.
But she did.
We used to have the best Christmas Days in Yorkshire in the sixties. We would always get a Comic Annual, Beano, Girls Crystal for me, a tin of Quality Street, a stocking with nuts and an Orange in it and a Terry's Orange or Walnut Whip.
Lunch was Prawn Cocktail, ( considered " Posh") cream of tomato soup ( Baxters, of course) chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, peas, sprouts and puréed chestnuts. Then jelly and cream or pudding and custard. My Granny made the Trifle with jam roll in the base, sherry soaked, a layer of green jelly, Birds Custard and stuff that was not real cream but came in a can. The whole lot topped off with hundreds and thousands. It was full of weird chemicals but was delicious.
Christmas Day funnily enough is not the worst day of the year for relationship breakups. One would expect the stress on relationships played out on Christmas Day would make it the worst but it is exactly two weeks before that is. Exactly 14 days before the 25th. I heard this strange statistic and was puzzled. Why would it be that day ?
Maybe it is time enough before Christmas to start thinking about the day and the coming New Year and thinking, no I don't want to be with that person. And have time enough to make alternate plans. Maybe it is the financial strain, the thankless task of just thinking about what you are buying everyone. The exhaustion of late nights and too much alcohol. I have no idea.
Maybe thinking ahead you don't want the partners kids there and know you are going to be stuck with them or expected to ferry them around when you want to sit with a strong beverage and fall asleep at the Queens Speech.
All I know is that I don't experience such angst. I love Christmas and everything surrounding it and I hope you do too. Merry Christmas xxx
It's a great time of year and the worst time of year, depending on your perspective. If you are a Christian, it's a time of celebration and gratitude for the birth of Jesus, even though, apparently the date is not the date of his actual birth. I am a believer. I dropped out for a few years as my Mother became an aetheist after my older Brother died.
Before that we were a strong Presbyterian family who always went to church on Sunday's and sang our hymns which I love. I also went to a Church Of England Grammar School and loved the morning assembly with its three hymns, religious traditions and strict rules. The cane was still used in those days. The Catholic Cathedral School was regarded as inferior and there was a certain amount of snobbery at work in the late sixties.
I never ever wore a cross as it seemed to be a Catholic or Foreign tradition. And we all know how the Brits used to regard foreigners. My Father, a Scot, regarded Ireland as a land somewhere west of Scotland. Foreigners were fine by him but my Mother was an Anglophile and regarded anyone with a foreign accent as a " Dago" or a "Wog". She addressed homosexuals as " Poofs" and " Queers".
She liked them as we knew quite a few with Dad being in the entertainment game, and at that time in polite society all homosexuals were pronounced Queer, or denounced, bugger was a real dirty word and so was sod, short for sodomy. Mum told me Lawrence of Arabia was a " poof" and he had lots of adoring little foreign boys following him everywhere, avidly.
After Jamie's death she was not just aetheist but an agnostic and tried to make us all the same. She blasphemed, she swore, she was no longer the polite, religious Woman she had been before his tragic death. We didn't realise that she had Post Traumatic Stress from the War. Dad kept it well hidden. And she died at 53 by her own hand. I often think if she had still been religious and anti depressants had been around then she wouldn't have died.
But she did.
We used to have the best Christmas Days in Yorkshire in the sixties. We would always get a Comic Annual, Beano, Girls Crystal for me, a tin of Quality Street, a stocking with nuts and an Orange in it and a Terry's Orange or Walnut Whip.
Lunch was Prawn Cocktail, ( considered " Posh") cream of tomato soup ( Baxters, of course) chicken, gravy, mashed potatoes, peas, sprouts and puréed chestnuts. Then jelly and cream or pudding and custard. My Granny made the Trifle with jam roll in the base, sherry soaked, a layer of green jelly, Birds Custard and stuff that was not real cream but came in a can. The whole lot topped off with hundreds and thousands. It was full of weird chemicals but was delicious.
Christmas Day funnily enough is not the worst day of the year for relationship breakups. One would expect the stress on relationships played out on Christmas Day would make it the worst but it is exactly two weeks before that is. Exactly 14 days before the 25th. I heard this strange statistic and was puzzled. Why would it be that day ?
Maybe it is time enough before Christmas to start thinking about the day and the coming New Year and thinking, no I don't want to be with that person. And have time enough to make alternate plans. Maybe it is the financial strain, the thankless task of just thinking about what you are buying everyone. The exhaustion of late nights and too much alcohol. I have no idea.
Maybe thinking ahead you don't want the partners kids there and know you are going to be stuck with them or expected to ferry them around when you want to sit with a strong beverage and fall asleep at the Queens Speech.
All I know is that I don't experience such angst. I love Christmas and everything surrounding it and I hope you do too. Merry Christmas xxx
