Nov
08
Posted by dodo
Even if you do take your own booze, you don’t want to appear a soak in front of your in-laws. ‘One year,’ said a friend, ‘we took up a crate of claret to my in-laws in Lancashire and, having polished it off, were asked to bury all the bottles in the garden, as my mother-in-law was so embarrassed by what the dustmen might think.’
On this subject I have never forgotten a hideously shameful occasion when my children were very young and my in-laws were staying. Having announced, sanctimoniously, and untruthfully, that I never drink at home at lunchtime, I then laced my orange juice with going to get me through the ordeal of grandparents’ and children’s lunch. My daughter, then aged two and a half, seized my glass, and, ‘thinking it was straight orange juice, took a great swig. She swiftly spat it out all over her grandmother and declared that she’d been poisoned, whereupon Granny took a tiny sip, and recognised gin. Read the rest of this entry »
Nov
08
Posted by dodo
`There was a point this Christmas,’ said a girlfriend, ‘as I was struggling to get the turkey out of the oven, and my husband was sweating away over the roast potatoes, when I asked myself for the hundredth time whether it was all worth it. The eager little faces all round the table — knife and fork at the ready in each tight little fist — were not those of the children but of the collection of geriatric grandparents, great aunts and uncles we seem to feed each year.’ Read the rest of this entry »
Nov
02
Posted by dodo
Bestsellers are also hazardous presents. Many years ago my brother and I each gave the other a copy of Doctor Zhivago. Be careful, too, if you’re going to read the book before giving it, not to turn down the pages or drop it in the bath, and remember that if you do cut off the price, because it’s considered bad form not to do so, the recipient can’t then change it. Read the rest of this entry »
Nov
02
Posted by dodo
Men, who probably long to be given Samantha Fox in a grass skirt and a lawn mower, tend to get black silk pyjamas as the ultimate in sophistication. Invariably they also get something to do with drink: bottle-openers, glasses, wine-coolers. Noel would prefer a wife-cooler over Christmas. A friend says that one of her uncles got fourteen bottles of various kinds of booze one year, and nothing else. He was terribly upset because, he said, anyone would think he was an alcoholic — which in fact he was. Read the rest of this entry »
Nov
02
Posted by dodo
I also like double presents: a pretty vase filled with coffee- flavoured chocolate beans, or a Beatrix Potter box with a fiver inside, or presents that last, like a year’s subscription to Private Eye, the Spectator or the Taller. Not having young children any more, I find it very difficult imagining what my small godchildren would like. If you ask a shop assistant whether some toy would be suitable for a child of five, she always says yes.
For a child under a year, you don’t have to buy them anything: just wrap up empty boxes — all they like is tearing at ..8coloured paper. Read the rest of this entry »
Nov
02
Posted by dodo
Spending beyond their income on gifts for Christmas - Swing doors and crowded lifts and draperied jungles - What shall we buy for our husbands and sons Different from last year?
Every year it’s the same. In about October, I’m nudged by telephone calls from female relations, asking, what would my children and husband like for Christmas? Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
27
Posted by dodo
Gordon Selfridge used to give all his staff a plum pudding and a pep pill at Christmas, presumably because he realised the pressures they would be under.
Commuting, in particular, in the run-up to Christmas is absolute murder, with cars and buses at a standstill, and all the tubes and trains crowded out because everyone’s pouring into the big cities to shop or see the lights. On the way home from a hard day’s work you are liable to find everyone either festively drunk, or helping someone else to be sick. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
27
Posted by dodo
When Mary heard she was to be the mother of Jesus she went and sang the Magna Carta.
Schoolboy Common Entrance essay Christmas approaches. Realising that the children will soon be breaking up, Scarlett O’Aga steps up her panicking. Buckling under Christmas shopping, she staggers past boutiques pounding out sexy pop music, and wishes that she had a salary to blue on party glitter and was at an office party being propositioned. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
22
Posted by dodo
There came wise dogs from the East bearing bones, and being wise they ate them.
Many English people won’t go away at Christmas because they can’t bear to abandon their animals. They hate the thought of putting the dogs in kennels, where they won’t get any turkey left-overs or a paper hat to wear at Christmas dinner, or leaving the cat in a cold house, with a neighbour coming in every day to top up the untouched Whiskas.
Other people have to work hard looking after farm animals. I remember one farmer’s wife telling me that she was going to have a lovely Christmas, because for the first time in thirty years of marriage they didn’t have cows to milk. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
22
Posted by dodo
Never buy a puppy for the children at Christmas. It’s the worst possible time to introduce a small creature into a new home with all the noise and excitement and tension. The children can easily get fed up with a puppy, too, when it starts eating their toys or making puddles, and little children, unless constantly watched, can be very cruel to animals if unused to them. Read the rest of this entry »
