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
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
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
10
Posted by dodo
Hours later at tea-time they reach Granny.
`Here you are at last,’ she cries in fluting reproach, rushing out in her medium-heeled court shoes and wool dress, embracing gingerly as she inhales a waft of dried sick, trying not to wince, as older children tread mud all over the carpet. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
10
Posted by dodo
The hostess scurrying around at Christmas seldom feels the cold, but her guests will, particularly if they’re old, and most of all if they’re newly widowed or separated. It is essential to heat up the drawing-room, and have electric blankets or at least hot-water bottles and an electric kettle in the spare rooms. If you’re the sort of hostess who can deputise, and is not distracted by chatter, heat up the kitchen so that people will gravitate there for warmth and you can get them grating onions or peeling sprouts. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
07
Posted by dodo
Lovers open their presents together before Christmas; the neglected open theirs when they arrive in the New Year. The Germans open theirs around six o’clock on Christmas Eve. The Royal Family, being largely of German ancestry and because they spend most of Christmas Day going to church, also open theirs on Christmas Eve. An eighty-foot-long trestle table in the Red Drawing-room is used to pile up the presents which are handed out by Prince Philip. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
07
Posted by dodo
And is it true? And is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all, Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue, A baby in an ox’s stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea Become a Child of earth for me?
One of the eternal debates for the noble army of churchgoers on Christmas Eve is whether to go to midnight mass, early service or matins on Christmas morning. However tired I am, I prefer the former, for the shaming reason that it gets church over with, and because, even more shamingly, if I opt for early service or matins the next day I never make it, and spend the rest of Christmas feeling guilty and somehow as though spiritually I’d gone to bed without cleaning my teeth and taking my make-up off. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
03
Posted by dodo
Another very good game which can be scaled down to any age group is Twenty-one Aces. The party sits round a big table with a set of poker dice. The person who throws the seventh ace, suggests a drink, Bovril and Bourbon perhaps, or Horlicks and Heineken. The person who throws the fourteenth ace mixes it, usually in sherry glass quantities, and the unfortunate person who throws the twenty-first ace drinks it, to howls of mirth. Read the rest of this entry »
Oct
01
Posted by dodo
Second only to the mega-catastrophe of the television breaking down (far worse than the collapse of the washing-up machine), the thing that makes people most ratty over Christmas is not being able to watch the programmes they want.
Were there fearful rows in the good old pre-telly days, one wonders, because the children wanted Daddy to read aloud from The Christmas Carol, and Granny insisted that Grandpapa recite ‘The Night Before Christmas‘ instead? Read the rest of this entry »
Sep
23
Posted by dodo
The shortest day (21 December in the northern hemisphere) was the time when the Vikings revelled in their Juul or Yule festivities for the worship of their god Odin, burning log fires to help the fading sun. English Druids on the other hand, held the festival of Nolagh. Ancient Romans used a seven-day period around the mid-winter date for their festival of Saturnalia when gifts were exchanged. Wealthy men gave money and clothing to poorer neighbours and in return received garlands, tapers and grains of incense. But their new year celebration of the Kalends (first day of the month) of January was when gifts were exchanged between families, relatives and children. The roles are reversed in France, where presents to the family are exchanged on the December date of Christmas Day, but gifts to friends and others are given at New Year. Read the rest of this entry »
