Messy Christmas

 

 

There was not one child in the premisis when I arrived this morning.  I dumped my Christmas Puddings (small balls of chocolate ones) among the food offerings being prepared.  I spoke to several people, gave out a card or two and took  my seat.  As always many a young lass came to speak to me, it happens regularly, and one the crowd dispersed I looked around and found the place full of kids!

Being a special kids oriented service the rear of the building was laid with tables of activities, all beyond me, and the kids were cutting, colouring, glueing, and so on happily.   

This went on for some time and then we were called to attention for the nativity part.

Naturally this followed the traditional manner, in spite of the readings we have done recently, and Mary and Joseph, two sisters, happily took their place, while a donkey, wise men, angels and one or two spare beings attended.  

All in all it went better than I expected and all appeared happy with the result.  Some men of note did agree that theological facts were taking a beating mind.  But a chocolate Christmas Pudding soon shut them up.

 

 

 

I was much taken by the obvious delight in this dad's face as he cuddled his new daughter.  Here was one happy man!  In spite of the noise around the babe never responded and concentrated on sleeping.  Mum was a happy competent lass also.  A jolly good Christmas Eve I say.

 

Christmas Eve

 

I'm shocked!

I met the woman downstairs today and discovered it was not the woman I thought it was.  They had moved out and this one replaced them about 18 months ago.  Jings, no-one tells me anything.

Anyway, I got on well with her and her 'uncle,' and walked round the town for air.

This grubby tree was in the centre and I took a shot of the lights though I do not like trees.  These are pagan things and have no place in Xmas to me.  However, the weather, ike the streets, was too dull for anything else, so I sauntered home, passing the few folks out seeking last minute gifts, or visiting watering holes, if open, for Xmas.  I saw one or two groups, and indeed heard them long before I saw them, well watered!

Now we face the Xmas days.  Tomorrow is Christmas Day, then Boxing Day, with two days off after this for the family arguments and recovery.

Many will also be sharing Covid virus's with friends and family, I will remain in safety with my liqueurs and whisky for protection...

 

Christmas Eve 2020

The dreichness lessened for a while today tempting me to cross the park to seek what dim sunshine was available.  Leaping in and out of the clouds the sun tried to brighten the place, which was hard as the clouds all came from the north, driven by a bitter wind.  

Nice however, to see the world outside of Tesco, but not so nice when the cold wind crashes through the cracks in the window frames.  Walking into it across the park was great fun if you are preparing for an Arctic adventure, not so good if you just wish to see daylight.  

Christmas cheer enabled one or two to acknowledge you were alive, but not all.  A nod here, a glance there, was all the cheer available.  There again most were wrapped up in winter outfits, with face masks on, as they had been at the shops 'Click & Collect' doors.  

Argos have been doing OK in spite of LockDown.  There were several freezing poutside awaiting permission from the Stasi to enter.  One or two other shops had similar administrations ongoing.  However, that said the streets were comparatively empty.  Traffic slow, supermarkets reasonably busy but most following Tier 4 orders.

All freezing cold.

 

Christmas joy is found in the media also.  Not just the needless screaming empty headlines lying about Boris and his so-called 'Deal,' but the routine joy of someone who dies from a sudden heart attack, the child in hospital, the robbery, the mugging, the drunks in cars and so on.  Today, the thing to do if you get sick is report this in the tabloids.  Why anyone whould wish to know you are sick, knocked-down/ill/having a fit/ pregnant/dead, I am not sure as most folk have never heard of you before and will have forgotten you by tonight.  However, there it is, any skin disease can be advertised in the paper, with picture, any illness, anything in fact bar news!   

Not that the days headlines are news.  The media acclaim Boris when it would be better hanging him upside down from a lamppost!  Brexiteers rejoice, except for the pouting ERG ones who shout 'Traitor' because he has not satisfied them.  We all know who the 'traitors' are!

One day soon however all these papers will be dead and gone, news will come digitally, and these media will not be missed.

Christmas Eve

Last night the streets were very quiet for a Saturday night.  Tonight however traffic flows as usual, possibly even more than usual as I suspect late last night families gathered while tonight last minute gatherings, preparation for late night church services, retrieving children from Christmas parties and the like force people onto the roads.  
In many homes the crinkling of trinkets and the rustling of paper, neatly parcelled by mum less so by dad is done in hushed tones in a vain effort to stop the brats from peeking in to see what is happening.  Their delusion of Santa long gone.
The delusion of Santa Claus, of if you are middle class Father Christmas, how did we get to this?  From where did we find the Christmas of dreary songs and 'magical extravagansa's' (@Blonde, bouncy TV girls everywhere), snowmen and reindeer?  It's a lie!
Can you imagine Mary and Joseph walking towards Bethlehem singing 'Jingle Bells?'  Picture the three men found on Christmas cards sitting on camels pointing towards a star, would they be singing 'Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow?'  I doubt it somehow.  Note also that such songs usually originate in 'tin pan alley' where the majority were penned by Jewish songwriters, Irving Berlin writing 'White Christmas' for instance.  Tinsel, Christmas trees, origins of the tree begins in eastern and central Europe where pagans once worshipped them, plastic snowmen on Australian beaches, inflatable reindeer in the middle east, flickering coloured lights all offering a 'Christmas feel,'  that special time of the year loved by so many but with nothing behind it bar sentiment and pap!
Bring back Cromwell I say!  Lets be done with all this peripheral nonsense and return to a proper Christmas.  May it be like every other day in this house, miserable!

My Christmas will be quiet especially as the cold I suffered so severely last month has gone to be replaced with a gentle every day cold the sweet lass at work passed on to me.  This limits my joy and ensures my remaining indoors for the next couple of days.  Having stocked up this is fine and not having to go out helps but it is irritating, mild though it is.  
The TV looks as poor as always tomorrow, one church service, Carols from Kings, and back to fifty channels of pap interspersed with kids films which no-one will be able to watch for the noise of the kids breaking things.  Radio 3 looks entertaining and Radio 4 might be passable although I suspect I will wish to have two programmes on at the same time!  Iplayer it is then.  
I will not be alone, the mouse has rummaged through a bin last night for something I foolishly threw in the wrong bin.  He might get a surprise tonight if I put the humane trap in their also.
The traffic is lessening, the kids must be home by now, gifts are being wrapped men warned that the wife/girlfriends gift had better be the right one, men are prepared for socks with vile designs and urged to enjoy mother in laws company again.  I know one man under orders not to accidentally kill any of his grandchildren, and not to take them walking with the dog and forget to bring them back like last time!  He might need the Single Malt whisky he will receive.

I hope your day is a good one and you remember the reason for the season.

Christmas Eve Again

The panic is over, the shops closing as early as they can, people wondering if the goods bought will do, some already half way through the generous wine and spirit bottles proffered to them, others indulging in friendships across the bar of many a public house.  Too late to worry now if the gifts will be accepted, just hope it is the thought that counts, not the Christmas jumper, the coloured socks or the cheap after shave uncles are used to getting at this time of year, for them giving is better than receiving, especially if it is another Christmas jumper!

The desire for bread got me out before the hordes descended on Sainsbury's for their last minute buys.  To get there I went the wrong way round to get a glimpse of grass and the pink sunrise.  Pink at one side yellow at the other.   The sky is always a wonder, except when it is gray of course! 

Now I always thought seagulls were bright birds able to spot lunch a mile away.  However this lot were swirling around like they were going down the plughole and avoiding the contents of last nights KFC box that was strewn across the grass not 50 yards away.  After a night sitting freezing on the estuary they pass over heading into the farmland seeking fields to devour yet they missed the deployment of cold chips that they usually manage to find in the bottom of bins.  Maybe they were expecting Christmas Pudding?  

Darkness has fallen, night closes its tired eyes, well maybe in an hour or so, kids everywhere are overexcited and unable to sleep, adults scramble to wrap presents in paper that will be a crumbled mess in 12 hours time, and publicans begin to recognise which of their clients will be helped home earlier than they expected shortly.  
Me I sit at the laptop working away on things of great importance, listening to radio, browsing Amazon to make use of the book token received, sipping tea, and wondering why I put so much on my plate!  This few days will not help the diet....

End of the Working Year

The doors shut at twelve noon, or just after as a woman entered as we were locking the door, and I will not reopen them until January.  How nice to be free form it for a while.  How nice for them all to forget work and enjoy life once again.  Family gatherings, holidays in the sun, short periods in jail, all these are ahead of us during the next few days.  My fridge is full of everything I need except that one thing I will be missing when I find what one important missing thing is, then there will be trouble.   Folks were filling the shops late into the afternoon, many men only now beginning to realise that they have a wife at home and no present and they have to leave the pub and go get her whatever it is she wanted whatever that was.  
Passing down the High Street I noticed a lot of bright yellow jackets hanging around.  The sight of one young man making off and haring down an alleyway pursued by one bright yellow jacket indicated something was amiss.  The yelling, screaming lassie, hands waving foul mouth in action, indicated others were involved, as indeed was drink!  For some time the populace forgot their worries and watched as these lower orders, and lower orders indeed they were, assisted the security staff with their work.  As I passed on two ambulance vehicles and a two police vehicles arrived.  They are never there when you want them and when they turn up there are loads of them  arresting you, well that's what I find anyway.
Now here's a thing, in Australia soon enough kids will be up early tearing open overpriced presents and still demanding more.  In the UK folks have still to get home from work, the shops, the pub, to wrap said presents, and in parts of the USA people are reaching for coffee to aid their entrance into the world yet again.  If Santa existed how would he overcome that I ask?   
Anyway it's teatime here, I can tell by the burning smell from the cooker, so I leave you while I go and hang my largest football sock up and await developments.

Christmas by John Betjeman
 
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hookers Green.

The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that the villagers can say
'The church looks nice' on Christmas Day.

Provincial Public Houses blaze,
Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze,
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says 'Merry Christmas to you all'.

And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.

And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad.
And Christmas-morning bells say 'Come!'
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me ?

And is it true ? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.

Time & Date

Christmas Eve

I had a problem with the lamp.
The bulb went out as I switched it on.  I switched off, went rummaging and found a new bulb.
I removed old bulb, placed it on desk besides new one and got interested in something on laptop.
I returned to bulb, inserted, switched on - nothing!
I removed bulb and replaced it again, firmly this time, and switched on.
Nothing.
Resentfully I then went two whole days in semi darkness before getting round to checking the plug.
This meant crawling under the desk into a world of dust, dead men's bones and plugs.  Eventually the right one was removed.  Opened it revealed an ageing 3A fuse.  I searched the fuses lying in  heap on the mantelpiece for reasons unknown to discover only 5A and 13A available.  UK standards insist on 3A for lamps.
I trudge out among the masses once again to the Indian ironmonger type shop where almost all those little things you require can be found cheap.  China must love this man!  Having stared at the wall covered in electrical bits for an age he came over and went to the fuses which were naturally right in front of me.  
Home again I replaced the fuse, entered the murky world beneath the desk wondering how long that half sandwich had lain there and inserted plug into its place.
Above I grasped bulb and shoved it where it goes, switched on, nothing!
It was at this point that I noticed another bulb still in the box.
Removing this I tried that one in the lamp, switched on and light flooded the grime filled room.
I had been using the old bulb instead of the new....

It was Christmas Eve in the Care Home
and drugs had not been given out....  

 .

The 24th December

'Twas Christmas eve in the workhouse

And all was quiet and still...'

So I took myself off out for a break.  I need to see the daylight every so often and I trotted out to smirk at those late Christmas shoppers as they despaired of buying the right thing.  Naturally as the day was bright and the sun had been around all day the minute I went through the door it rained!  It indeed poured down for just as long as it took me to wander about.  As I squelched my way home the cloud, a thick black brute covering the entire planet, decided to end and began to make its way eastwards to give Colchester a good clean.  You get some impression of the thing as it departed over the Fish & Chip shop.  A dark brooding cloud heading east leaving behind a warm sun beginning to reflect off the houses.  Bah Humbug!!  My shoes might be dry by Hogmany!

Not long after the rain the sky was like this!  Tsk! 

Christmas Eve and throughout the land kids are alert for a big fat man in a red outfit clambering down their chimney, leaving his reindeer on the rootop, or maybe they are rummaging about the house attempting to find the things the folks have hidden away.  (Did you know Santa was originally dressed in Green?) Young children's faces are a wonder to behold at this time, but not so wonderful as mum and dad when the kids wake at three in the morning to search for parcels!  Evening descends and the frantic scramble ebbs away, panic rises in hearts that some major item has been forgotten, even if its importance is widely exaggerated.  A great many items considered important for tomorrow will actually be not that important after all.  Relax and enjoy, worse things happen at sea. 

What's the point of it all?  Family gatherings maybe?  Good indeed, if you have a happy family.  Giving and receiving gifts?  Also a good thing, but possible all year of course.  A celebration that winter will end as we now head into the new year, well next week we do, and look forward to Spring returning (hooray!). Yes indeed, and for thousands of years that has been the real reason for the feasting and revelry.  At some time in the past the church, most likely the ecclesiastical organisation based in Rome, took the great Bacchanalian debauchery and clothed it as a 'Christian' festival.  Quite right too I say! They however made a mistake here in referring to this as Jesus' entry into the world, that probably happened about May or June or thereabouts in 5 BC, and we should be celebrating his birth around those months I say.  For one thing it will be warmer and for another the shops will be less busy. 

As always the Scots almost have it right.  New Year is the time for the jollity and not Christmas, the Christ Mass as it were.  Calvinism ensured Scotland regarded their religion properly, except when they didn't of course.  Christmas was a normal day until the late 50's in Scotland.  My dad went to work at Christmas until at least 1960, although how much actual work was done by then I would not like to say. I suspect an early finish and a trip to the 'Anchor Inn' was on the horizon for many.  Ah well, in the bleak midwinter we require the hope of sunshine to come, unless you live in the southern hemisphere obviously!  At this time of year those peoples look forward to er, more sunshine, bah!  I hope we all enjoy the day, and of course start jogging soon afterwards.

*

Christmas Eve

In spite of my condition, and the amazing lack of sympathetic gifts of brandy, I woke early this morning and headed for the horse meat shop to obtain my Christmas feast. Going early meant I got plenty of scrag ends plus I found one or two onions at the back of the fruit & veg stall in the market.  What with an old cabbage leaf or two I reckon this will be a better Christmas lunch than last years.  I also found gold! Yes GOLD!  At least one of those little round £1 coins which I instantly proffered in exchange for a winning lottery ticket.  I know this is a winning one as I asked for this and was given a smiling reassuarance from the lass behind the desk that "oh yes, this will be the winner.  Don't forget me when you win will you?" She smiled a knowing smile and I agreed I would indeed rememebr her.  I will send her a postcard from Guam that will please her!


However I returned home and  dumped my precious finds.  I decided that as the sun had appeared I would once more trawl the shops and streets looking for lost coins and foodstuffs.  I zipped my coat right up to my chin, tightened my cheap baseball cap on my head, thrust my hands deep in my empty pockets and bore the chilled air with little affection for it.  As I crossed the empty park I considered the young lass from Perth Daily Photo who was suffering a Christmas Day on the beach with heat reaching around 30 degrees.  What me, jealous?  You bet!  Heat, near naked women, ice creams and Christmas pudding?  Sounds OK to me.


For reasons unknown I took out my wallet.  As the moths slowly opened their eyes I realised the lottery ticket was not there!  Drat!  I must have dropped it earlier, possibly not putting it in the pocket correctly.  My dreams of fame and fortune faded.  I wandered back to the shop, gazed around the floor hoping to see it lying there, and found nothing but disapointment and dust.  I enquired somewhat embarrassed as to whether it had been handed in. Surpressing a grin the lass denied this had happened and I realised it had indeed been dropped there, handed over to her, and she now awaited my winnings! Grrrrrr!  


Back towards home I trundled, head down attempting to avoid wet patches getting into the hole in my shoe.  What an idiot, wasting money on a lottery ticket, and now despairing that it had got lost.  It crossed my mind that this was not a good attitude.  I had nothing, lost nothing but might have won something!  That 'might have' is where the temptation arises.  With odds of around 14 million to one it is unlikely a major win will arrive, but then again a large donation 'might!'  In my financial position that 'might' is powerful!  I passed throught he 'Dingley Dell' and noticed a Robin fluffed up against the cold sitting on a branch.  Not possible to get a picture as the brute was too far away, yet the words 'They do not worry or fret  and he feeds the birds of the air,' came to mind.  So why should I be concerned, or indeed even play the Lottery?


Back home again I found the ticket sitting on my desk where I left it as I came in earlier.
Fool!

.