Tuesday 21 December 2010

the best laid plans of mice and er..women...


Well, I have been rather rubbish haven't I? After all that talk about blogging I seem to have gone 6 weeks without a peep. So sorry. 

I would claim to be wonderfully busy, with no time at all to document my fast paced social life, but, in fact, as is often the way, these weeks have passed me by in a haze of "meh", "squeee", "bah!" and back to "meh" (I do prefer onomatopoeic verbs, even if i do make them up myself) 

anyway, with Christmas rapidly approaching, i have found myself feeling the need to document a few things. what does christmas mean, to you, rather.. not in a biblical sense?

when i was little, it was sitting the the school hall making christingles, trying to sneakily steal jelly tots from under the teachers noses. it was making mince pies with my mum. it was undernocircumstancesmustyouenterthelivingroomonyourown and spending hours sitting in my room peeking at my stocking waiting until i could wake up my parents (5am right? right.) 

when i was a bit older it was going christmas shopping with my friend Alicia. Every year. The 23rd. (we liked to cut it fine... infact, that was the day we got our pocket money). it was the precision and care i took to wrap all my presents. it was the youth club christmas disco. it was spending hours sitting in my room with my sister peeking at our stockings waiting until we could wake up my parents (6am right? right.) 

fast forward a bit. it was getting dressed up in fairy wings and christmas hats and working christmas eve before heading out with all your friends to do the obligatory ohmygoditschristmasiloveyouohmygodimsodrunk (...yeah that bit is still the same 10 years on), getting woken up with a hangover by my sister who was peeking at her stocking and waiting until she can wake up mum (7.30 right? right.)

So thats the three stages of a child's Christmas for me. small child, older child, teenager. 

then what? what happens when you're no longer a kid, by any stretch of the imagination. 

you move away, you're not there to make mince pies with your mum (at least i'm not, when i fled the nest i flew a good 100 miles south-east which makes popping round to bake pies a bit difficult), you're not there to put the christmas decorations up while listening to Bing et al. and most importantly, you're not waking up spending hours in your room, with or without sister/hangover wondering when you can open your presents (hang on, no matter what i will most likely always have a hang over on christmas morning, so we can scrap that). In fact, you're not waking up in your room at all. You're making new traditions. and BOOM, you're an adult. 

just like that. smacked in the face with a great big wet smoked salmon (and quails eggs).

personally, every christmas that i haven't spent at home i have found oddly miserable. i haven't been forced to stay away at all. i've made the decision myself. yet, i wake up on christmas morning with respective OH and my mum calls to wish merry christmas and the familiar satsuma in the back of the throat thing happens and "how could i do this? what am i doing? i want to go hooooooooooome. this isn't CHRISTMAS!?" 

so this year, I am going home. it was a tough decision. a big part of me wanted to stay here with my friends, but then living alone this year, and the prospect of waking up on christmas morning on my own. (NB: if this every happens, it is likely i will hang myself from a christmas tree with a length of tinsel) AND the fact that my grandparents are very unwell, thought it was time to make the pilgrimage homeward.

the hard thing is, i find at christmas, is trying to decide to be an adult or a child. i think a lot of us turn into kids at christmas time, but trying to balance that with the responsibilities of being an adult is a bit of a bore sometimes. So this year, I surrender. I am going to get drunk with my sister on christmas eve (that is an adult trait that is allowed to stay in the childhood christmas wonderland in my head), and wake up and open my stocking with my sister and mum in her room (8.30am right? right.), eat quails eggs and smoked salmon (which i haven't prepared) and wear my goddamn santa hat in the car to visit the relatives. 

I may even stay up to see if i can see father christmas. 






No comments:

Post a Comment