Christmas Always Makes Me Nervous

Hooray! The tree is up. I’d done my holly and ivy pagan decoration (see below) but had to wait for the arrival of the very special Boy Who Likes Chocolate (from univ. via London ) to tackle the tree. He’s been Involved with The Tree for the last nineteen years. For the last five years he has been In Charge of The Tree. As you see, it is room height and features his signature red/gold/white bands.

Christmas always makes me nervous: the urgent need to Enjoy Oneself; the worry about whether the present will work for this or that loved one; the need for the food to be extra special, the house beautiful. And then in the wider world we have the TV streaming models of joy and affluence impossible to equal, set alongside the shadenfreudic, often pompous, commentaries about debt and poverty homelessness and family conflict endemic in this season..

In older age one becodmes quite good at self-analysis. Despite the fact that our present day family Christmasses are sweet and seem to work out well, I know my deeply worried attitude springs from the far-from-idyllic Christmasses in my childhood. In fact it is symptomatic that – apart from reading A Christmas Carol - I can’t remember Christmasses between the ages of nine and eighteen.

But here we have TBWLC decorating a tall tree underpinned with bright shiny presents and t a kitchen charged with quite lovely promise for today and tomorrow. And - wonderfully - the Licked Spoon Entourage, complete with Barney the dog, arrives on Thursday. (With cookies - see her exquisite  Christmas blogs)

And all this I’m beginning to feel, will make a very memorable Christmas. As Tiny Tim says, ‘God Bless us Every One.’

So to you, very gentle reader, I wish a very peaceful, happy and memorable Christmas Eve, Christmas Day & Christmas season.

Wendyx