Christmas is a-coming

[nineveh_uk]

And the goose is nowhere to be seen, which is fine by me. However I am going to have a go at hare over the holidays. My mother, who suffered a traumatic hare cooking incident more than 40 years ago, the reason that neither of my parents has cooked one since, has stipulated that it will be ordered fully prepared and jointed. Apparently there is a reason that they are cheaper to buy with the skin still on. On a less meaty culinary subject I have made mince pies, as last year I didn't have enough.

The Christmas tree is up - actually, it has been up for a week, which is too early,* but if I only put it up this weekend I'd only have it for a week before going away. The tinsel on the stairs is less successful, and needs another attempt. I have five more days left at work before the break, which is both good and terrifying. I was off for two days with a cold this week, which was not great timing. I suppose it is better than having a cold over Christmas, and hopefully it will be mostly gone by then. I have done almost all of my Christmas shopping, so I can relax about that.

Anyway, here (on LJ...) is the Christmas tree by special request of azdak so she feels less premature with hers!


*I have to say it is too early in case people think I don't realise this.

Comments

[perennialanna]

I also have that. I can just about cope with a Nordmann fir, but lesser trees set it off.

We are going fake because I am taking the children to my parents the day after Boxing Day for an indeterminate length of time, as long as I am back to read the Epistle on the 3rd of January*, and we are not putting a tree up until next weekend (I used to do Christmas Eve because it was when work finished, but these days I do the first full day of the school holidays. The children were decorating the tree at their father's house today, but they seem to be coping with "different families have different traditions and you have two families now").

*New church deals with "Marriage went bang and am coming out" by saying "Great! Which rotas would you like to be on?". We have just acquired an honorary priest who is coming out in his 70s after the end of a very long marriage. He is rather magnificent, although his sermons tend to be startling.

[tree_and_leaf]

Glad that the children are coping and that new church is being good.

[nineveh_uk]

Being away does make real ones tricky. I'm away myself for 12 days and really intended to buy an artificial one, but weakened. Also I can store the growing one in the garden, where there is more space than I have to store things in the house!

New church sounds good!

[antisoppist]

We always did Christmas Eve but under protest from children I went to last day of term. This year, however, I had promised this weekend because eldest child is all about the build-up and "being like everyone else". But moving a tree down the hill as well as moving house would have been ridiculous so I asked their father if he would do his this weekend instead and he did. But now his is all Christmassy, and exactly like it used to be, and mine is all boring still and I have got to reinvent my own Christmas decorations. But it is only a week...

[nineveh_uk]

It is only a week. And then you will have a BETTER tree. She says, in unhelpful competetive parenting mode.

I like the icon tree. Is that the John Lewis one?

[antisoppist]

It is very like the John Lewis one that I wanted last year but they had sold out of, but it is made by someone local and I bought it at the street fair in September with my birthday money from my sisters (which I should have been spending on domestic equipment but I wanted one cheering thing as well). I think this makes it even better than one from John Lewis. It is in my window and I have hung my earrings on it, which means my earrings are decorative even when I am not wearing them and I get to look at them, which I can't when I am wearing them.

For Christmas I bought it a tree decoration house from Waitrose because I felt in need of a house, even if it was a very very small one. And if it was a symbolic, gods-placating, omen-ous, wish-fulfillment bid, it seems to have worked.

[nineveh_uk]

It looks like an excellent use of birthday money, and I like the little house in it's Lawrie Marlowe-esque glory. Local "artisan" Christmas trees are better even than JL.

It is a sad truth of earrings that most of the time one doesn't get to look at it. I seem to prefer studs to dangly ones, which means options for displaying them are less decorative, and they end up living in boxes (or wherever I take them off until I remember to put them away).

[perennialanna]

Their father put his tree up on Saturday, because they helped decorate it (there is no such thing as a domestic secret when small children are moving between two houses. For example, I know that "Daddy and J have some very odd jam". Which turned out to mean strawberry and black pepper).

Also on Saturday the children made cardboard figures out of Ikea bookshelf boxes while there, and brought them home to finish off here. Which I suppose is the kind of easy interchange we were all aiming for, but it still feels damn odd to me.

[antisoppist]

It is all damn odd to get used to. To avoid me being nitpickily possessive about bloody Christmas tree ornaments, I suggested the children pick me out some for my tree while they were decorating his. They have picked all the wooden ones which I do like but they think are boring, and only about six. I am grown-up. I can cope. On Saturday we will all go and pick some new ones. But I am annoyed that he is the one that doesn't care about stuff and sentimental value and history and atmosphere and he is the one who has got all of it.

[perennialanna]

The thing that is making me most sad is that I won't have any presents under the tree (the children have never got us presents, obviously he won't be getting me anything, and instead of posting her presents as usual my mother is saving them until the children and I go there on the 27th. Just as well, given that she is giving me a complete set of Wainwright to replace my granny's copies that I didn't claim when the house was sorted out because I couldn't quite believe that this really was the last time I'd ever be there). Which is a really stupid thing to be sad about in the general scheme of things, especially when I have any number of unread books and unknitted wool I could perfectly well wrap up as a present to myself of a project to start on Christmas Day.

The autumn term is always at least a week too long. We are all shattered, our tempers are suffering accordingly, and my bloodstream is at least 85% black coffee this week.