Where are you going to spend Christmas this year?

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.’

The reason why so many couples resort to home fixtures — knackering as they may be — is that away fixtures are often infinitely worse. At least at home you can drink as much as you like, keep warm and not worry the whole time about your children breaking the place up.

At first sight this might not seem like a major issue; but the problem with Christmas — rather like having a baby — is that it occurs infrequently enough for us to be able each time to blot out the horrors of the previous one. Let me refresh your memory.

If you’re newly married, or married without children, the Christmas fixtures row begins in October and goes as follows:

Wife: ‘We’re not going to your parents. No drink, paper napkins used twice, and plates whipped away before you’ve finished your last mouthful.’

Husband: ‘We’re not going to your parents. No central heating, no washing-up machine, and those bloody dogs.’

Whatever decision is taken, the row then continues until Twelfth Night.

The arrival of children in a marriage complicates things even more. Away fixtures, unless grandparents live nearby and are used to the children, can be an utter nightmare. If Grandpapa puts his hand on his somewhat dicky heart, he will admit how much he is dreading the visit; Granny is more hypocritical.

`Such fun to have a houseful,’ she flutes, upstaging her bridge friends. ‘All the grandchildren are descending.’ (Rather as though they were coming down in a spaceship. As a matter of fact, if you don’t see your grandchildren very often, they can seem as alien as Martians.)

The day of the: visit dawns. Suddenly there’s the bang of the Volvo door and three under-threes with frightful colds, snot cascading in parallel dines from their nostrils, erupt into the beautiful, ultra-tidy house, and start destroying the place far more effectively than any bulldozer.

Grandpapa shouts a lot, because having so many people around makes him nervous, and this unnerves the children even more. Soon Ribena is spilt all over the new lemon-yellow sofa, sticky fingers are edging towards the Rockingham, and at lunchtime a precious glass (belonging to a complete set, given as a wedding present forty years ago) is dropped and smashes on the flagstones. Finally the Virgin Mary goes missing from the crib, and, after the whole house has been up-ended and World War III has broken out, is discovered under the spare-room bed in the gross clasps of a lascivious Action Man.

Almost worse for grandparents than the helplessly permissive mother is the progressive daughter-in-law, the ApresSpock health freak, who goes into orbit if poor Granny slips little Carol a few Smarties between meals, or gives her Coke, fried beefburgers and bubble-and-squeak for lunch. Then, having been gratuitously beastly in conversation about the Daily Telegraph, the progressive daughter-in-law proceeds to whip out a long grey tit and breast-feed in the middle of a Boxing Day drinks party.

And if the visiting mother gets uptight because her children are behaving badly or being spoilt by Granny, her husband will be soon complaining about his father-in-law. ‘Mine’s so mean,’ admitted one son-in-law. ‘He not only waters the logs, and keeps turning the light off outside the children’s bedroom at night, but, worst of all, he winces if I open another bottle of wine from the two crates I’ve brought .him.’

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