Christmas spirit

My first wife's mother was Austrian* and so their family celebrated Christmas on December 24th. I very quickly adapted to this way of doing things, as the Christmas meal and present giving is done in the evening, which means the daytime is one long build up to a festive crescendo. 

This only improved once we had children, who would spend the day running around shrieking with their cousins whilst the grown-ups cooked and wrapped and shopped and sipped the occasional glass of mulled wine. In the early evening we'd attend a brief church service, sing a carol around the tree, have the Christmas meal and then open our presents. It's a great way of doing Christmas.

To be honest, after we divorced I'd have missed that way of doing things except that my mum is a church minister so she'd always have a service to give in the morning, meaning that by the time that she and my dad had driven up to us, it would be the late afternoon and evening when we had our Christmas festivities. Thus we maintained the Austrian way of doing things.

Including this weekend; my brother and his daughter are with us and today is our (faux) Christmas day. There was a lot to do, not least food and drink shopping, and buying a tree. The Minx did the food shop in Chorley, while I did the booze shop in Kendal after I'd collected Hannah and Charlie from Oxenholme station. 

It was a miserable day weatherwise, and it was pouring with rain as we set off to get the tree: me, Dan and Abi, Wol and my niece. I'd wanted to wait until the weather cleared but it wasn't going to happen, so we gave in and drove to the farm where we always get our tree, just a few miles along the A65 from the M6. We managed to find a cracker almost immediately and we set off home in good spirits at which point the Minx rang me to say the Christmas decorations had been taken away by the packers. 

I have two largish boxes of decorations. Some are ones that have been made by the kids over the years and others are the ones we've bought on our annual trip to Beetham Nurseries, when each of the children was allowed to choose a decoration. I was gutted to think we had a tree but no decorations (or lights). I really wasn't sure what we'd do. Except have a rather bare and minimalist tree to match the minimalist house.

But by the time we got back, the Minx had been out into Kirkby to buy lights and two of the older girls were already at the table making new decorations, cutting decorative shapes out of cardboard and painting them. I can't begin to tell you how moved I was (and still am).

And so we have a completely new looking tree, this year. Of course, it looks nothing like our tree normally does but I don't mind that at all. To me it radiates the Christmas spirit, after everyone mucked in to make Christmas happen. God bless us, every one.

*Actually Hungarian who fled as a child with her family to Austria during the second world war.