I think I deserved the headache this morning. You will not be surprised to hear that although the headache quickly disappeared we had somehow gone off the idea of alcohol, and have had a liver-friendly day of water and orange juice. We did not mind this at all, as it turned out, we have had the loveliest quiet day of eating and being together, and I didn’t want to waste any of it by feeling even the smallest bit drunk.
Fortunately the children are not early risers. Mark and I had a tranquil cup of coffee in bed together, then we dressed unhurriedly and eventually woke the children up at half past eleven to open their Christmas stockings.
The children open their Christmas stockings first thing in the morning, but everything else waits until after dinner. Mostly the stockings are things that they have asked for. This year, which was easy and convenient, to my relief they had almost entirely wanted books and games.
In fact the joyful success of the morning was an un-asked-for present: of Oliver’s exciting new handkerchiefs. These caused actual gasps of happiness. These are blue with his name embroidered on them in gold thread, one special satin one for important occasions and the others cotton. He was overwhelmed with the pleasure of them, they beat his new slippers hands down.
Oliver had buzzed off secretly with Number One Son-In-Law during our Manchester visit to buy Christmas presents for me and Mark, which we opened straight away because he was absolutely bursting with excitement. Mine was the brilliant choice of Hotel Chocolat’s alcoholic truffles, and Mark’s was the equally brilliant choice of a Nerf gun. They spent some time shooting one another up and down the stairs after that, and Roger Poopy is going to be pooing bits of Nerf gun bullet for weeks.
After that small excitement Mark and I did some dinner preparation and the children buzzed off upstairs to read new books and draw with new pens and play new games.
Dinner worked like a dream. The goose went on the top of the oven with the potatoes underneath and the carrots and parsnips at the bottom, smothered in butter and honey and covered in tin foil.
We put the timer on the oven, took the dogs for a blustery walk, where we briefly bumped into Oliver’s friend Harry. Harry had been given a new pogo stick, and was busy accumulating bruises. We wished him a happy Christmas and made our way home, where we went back to bed.
This was a brilliant idea, and we woke up just before the oven timer beeped.
We straggled sleepily down the stairs to do the last things like the sprouts, for the curious, I boiled them for a couple of minutes, drained the water off, mixed some butter, salt and ground nutmeg in with them and put them back on the heat whilst we dished everything else out, and jolly splendid they were too.
To my considerable surprise given the minimum effort I had put in to it, dinner turned out to be ace. I had forgotten about gravy but nobody minded, and the goose was brilliant. Mark and I ate everything and the children ate everything except the vegetables. Nobody wanted pudding because of being too stuffed with dinner, so it was a good job that Elspeth’s family had eaten loads of them yesterday.
This was our moment for giving the children our Christmas present. In fact this was a family Christmas present, intended for all of us, and the effort of keeping it secret has been thrilling for weeks.
We have booked them a flying lesson each. We are all going to go together for each one, because of there being enough seats in the aeroplanes: we are going to go and do it next week.
They were every bit as excited as we could possibly have hoped, and after that dinner burst into a flood of excited chatter and trying to read the instruction book without glasses in the candle light: because now Christmas is not at all over but has carried on into an adventure next week.
We pulled the rocking chairs in front of the fire and opened our Christmas presents: which were marvellous. I had a gorgeous wreath made of dried fruit which smelled ace. Mark hung it up in the kitchen for me, you can smell it as you come down the stairs. Lucy had a collection of teenage clothes, including some trousers with prearranged holes in them. Mark had a splendid new cap, which he wore later on to empty the dogs, and Oliver had a crossbow and collection of explosives from Number One Son-In-Law, who can write the letter of apology to the headmaster himself.
On top of all of that lot there were small treasures like chocolates and candles and wine, and I am now the proud owner of my very own pair of sheepskin-lined flip-flops. We felt absolutely overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness of people, and the perfect choices everybody had made. What a gorgeous day.
Mark is just tidying up, and I thought I would take a minute to write to you.
I am married to a man with a collection of flat caps.
Who would have imagined that in my wild youth?
