On the thirteenth Day of Christmas (Top 10 Christmas Wishlist (2007))

Member Name: duncantorr

Product:	Top 10 Christmas Wishlist (2007)
Date:	22/12/08 (796 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 'Tis the season to be jolly

Disadvantages: Only twelve days, if that

We've reached that time of year again, when from having been too soon to think about preparations for Christmas it will soon suddenly become too late. In our household this transition takes a particular form, one that reflects a temperamental difference between my wife and me. She is a proactive person, who likes to face up to getting things done early so that she can then relax. I prefer to face up to the relaxing first, the doing later. Note that there is no difference in our willingness to undertake the necessary tasks, nor in our willingness to relax, merely in our order of priorities.

In any case, the upshot is that I tend to think it's still too early for Christmas preparations while she's already thinking it's too late, and some friction inevitably ensues. And this year history, like so many of us at Christmas, shows every sign of repeating itself. Which is one reason for looking forward to the day itself, by which time it will be possible to tick off the first item on the "Top 10 Christmas Wishlist", namely:


1. Christmas shopping over for another year.

By one means or another, it will be done. The one means is her careful compilation of lists and systematic purchasing of the selected items; the other is my frantic foray late on Christmas Eve. It has to be admitted that there are not many things still needing to be bought by then, but in spirit I am always willing to do my share and it is not my fault that something - misplaced priorities, impatience or Pre-Midwinter Tension - takes possession of her soul and robs me of the chance to do so, leaving me with nothing to do but feel guilty. Still, I forgive her as I hope she will forgive me, because it is the season of: -

2. Good will.

A time to forgive everyone their trespasses. And this includes good will not just towards the usual suspects, but towards those who would not in the normal way of things feature on any good will list: those who trespass against us, for example, those who want us to do the Christmas shopping, noisy neighbours, telephone salespeople, mothers-in-law, carol singers and so on.

Carol singers? I sense your askance glance and hear your sharp intake of breath as you begin to suspect me of unseasonally Scrooge-like tendencies, doubtless wondering why good will towards carol singers should be called into question in the first place. So, yes, I confess. At the risk of revealing myself as a curmudgeon, carol singers do remind me a bit of trick-and-treaters, and are surely the sort of people our far-sighted legislators had in mind when they outlawed the practice of demanding money with menaces, the menace in this case being the infliction of further ill-sung songs unless they are bribed to go away ("we'll not go until we've got some, so bring it out here" - I rest my case, m'lud).

But note that I am pleading for them to be forgiven, thereby proving my good will to one and all, even to our legislators (at what other time of year would I be likely to refer to them as "far-sighted"?). Good will of this high octane kind doesn't come of its own accord, but requires additives, which brings us to: -

3. Good cheer, or Cheers at least.

Regular readers of my reviews will know that I don't usually need an excuse to enjoy a drink. Okay, I'll rephrase that: I don't ever need an excuse to enjoy a drink. Nevertheless, why turn down a perfectly good excuse when one presents itself? And no excuse presents itself more pervasively or persuasively than does Christmas. I'll drink to that.

Alcohol is not, I'm told, without its anti-social side. Allegedly some people do silly things under its influence, things they will later regret, like driving, becoming belligerent or proposing marriage. (Just in case this is giving you ideas, take a tip from an old hand and do not attempt all three at the same time, even when sober.)

But few of life's blessings are entirely unmixed. Every silver lining has its cloud. The worst cloud in the case of drink is the dark one, pregnant with thunder, which hangs over your head the morning after. There are several ways to lighten this darkness. You could: delay your awakening till the afternoon (impractical in a house full of revellers), not imbibe so much in the first place (unthinkable), dilute it with masses of water (undrinkable) or eat excess food to absorb the superfluity of alcohol. No prizes for guessing which I recommend. It's: -

4. Eating to excess.

Gluttony, in fact. I'll eat to that. Roast bird of a suitable species, sticky pudding of the kind you have cunningly kept from the carol-singers, choccies and cake - the sort of fare that adds inches to your waistline just drafting the menu. Yes, gluttony's supposedly one of the deadly sins, but it's by no means the only one to rear its beautiful head at Christmas-tide, so let's forgive it its trespasses and accord it the starring role that it deserves.

Talking of which, this seems a suitable moment to tackle the thorny issue of religion and its role in Yuletide festivities. I know that some people are put off Christmas by the intrusion of Christianity into what was originally a Pagan festival, but I feel this is ungenerous, unworthy and narrow-minded. Christmas should be for everyone to enjoy, even Christians. And even Pagans for that matter. Indeed, even everyone, in whatever way they choose.

Most religions have a midwinter festival of some sort, the real purpose being to lighten the gloom and fuel people's spirits for the long trek through the coldest months to Spring, which only goes to show that religions are not always as daft as one might reasonably suppose. Of course, they all have their own eccentric approaches to midwinter celebration, and what we are familiar with as Christmas draws on a whole variety of these, and on secular ones as well. Within my own, wholly irreligious, family we pick and mix still further from the medley of celebratory options on offer, without prejudice as to whether their origins were religious or otherwise. One of the curious customs we enjoy is: -

5. Decking the Halls....

....with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la la, la la la la! Actually, mostly with ivy since this overruns our garden with a vigour that the holly cannot match, and is more pliable and easier to handle when used for decking. But holly has the priceless advantage of rhyming with jolly, so let's include them both. Oh yes, and mistletoe too. As with having a drink, one doesn't really need an excuse for kissing people, but why turn down a perfectly good excuse when one presents itself?

Then there's the tree, of course, shimmering with lights and festooned with baubles and tinsel - baubles and tinsel that are in danger in a cat-owning household, but what the hell, it's their Christmas holiday too (the cats', that is, not the baubles' and tinsel's, which will be working overtime). And even if you do have cats to clamber up and claw down the decorations, you've got to have the tree, if only to have something beneath which to stack: -

6. Pressies.

Even at my age, I find there is still a thrill to opening presents. This is strange, since there is very little that I want to be given. I don't mean to suggest that I'm selfless - far from it - just satiated. I already have about all the material possessions I am ever likely to desire. This makes it tough for the family to buy gifts for me, and apart from the pleasure of receiving there is an added frisson of curiosity as to what they will have found. They can be remarkably, and gratifyingly, inventive.

In any case, it's not just one's own gifts that matter. It's the whole friendly ritual of the gift-opening. Ideally, of course, one has young children in attendance to set the tone with some really unbridled excitement, from the whoops of delight at the discovery of filled stockings on awakening to the tearing off of wrapping paper and the instant absorption in the toys within. Probably, it is the memory of one's own childhood joy that make present-opening so pleasurable. Similarly with: -

7. Silly games.

And, to be fair, some sensible ones as well, though these should be played in party hats from crackers to imbue them with an appropriate spirit of silliness. If games become too serious, there are always quizzes, puzzles, ritual readings and recitations and so forth to fall back on. It may be awfully corny, but I enjoy that sort of stuff; it harks back to a bygone age when people had to create their own active entertainment, rather than sitting passively in front of a television - not that I mind sitting passively in front of a television if the right programme is showing or if I'm too stupefied to do anything more active. Assuming I'm still insufficiently stupefied and sufficiently active, I also enjoy: -

8. A refreshing Christmas Walk.

One of our family rituals. We always have a light lunch on Christmas Day, saving the slap-up blow-out for the evening, and this means that there is generally an hour or so of daylight in the afternoon for a walk around the neighbourhood. Quite a lot of people seem to do this, so there is plenty of opportunity to exchange cheery greetings with passers-by, contributing to the benign mood of the occasion. It also freshens us up for the later assault on food, drink, games and all the other goodies listed above.

As with the rest of them, it also brings us together as a: -

9. Contented family.

I know that there must be something deeply wrong with my family because we all get on rather well. Probably, we're in need of counselling. Families, as we know, are meant to be dysfunctional, beset by squabbles, feuds and seething resentment. Maybe I'm just insensitive, but I detect none of these in our household, except of course for my wife's resentment of my tardiness doing my share of Christmas preparations, a relatively minor matter, although I suppose she might not think so.

But what ointment is complete without the odd fly? Generally, we're a happy family. It's the pleasure of gathering a happy family around me that enables me to regard Christmas as a haven of: -

10. Peace and Quiet.

As with gifts, the wish for peace and quiet is actually surplus to my own requirements. I no longer need Christmas to provide me with peace and quiet because my life is full of those two precious commodities in any case. But the memory lingers of when Christmas was a brief lull in a hectic storm of work and parental obligations. And where the memory lingers so does the mood. Even though I'm busier at Christmas now than at most other times of year, it still feels like a time of rest.

The only thing really wrong with Christmas is that it does not go on long enough. Where are those twelve days of Christmas that we hear of in the song? By the twelfth day of Christmas most of us are long since back at work and the only evidence of celebration is some rather bedraggled decorations overdue to be dismantled. We're all being short-changed, in my opinion. I propose to start a campaign to BRING BACK THE FULL 12 DAYS. Indeed, why stop there? Once we have achieved the restoration of the twelve days, we can progress to thirteen (following the admirable precedent of the baker's dozen), then fourteen and so on....

Until eventually no one, not even I, will be able to complain that Christmas starts too early, because it never will have stopped.


© First published in its original form under the name torr on Ciao UK, 24th December 2004.

Talking of dates, I notice that Dooyoo's topic heading stipulates 2007, so perhaps I'm posting this a little late, but the wishlist wouldn't have been different then, even with the benefit of hindsight.

Summary: A wishlist of things to enjoy at Christmas