Mulling over my festive highlights

I usually enjoy Christmas, and luckily this year’s been one of the usual. There’ve only been a few years that I’ve not really enjoyed Christmas; the year my Dad died; the year I had a bad dose of gastric flu; the year one of our main contractors went bust and we were struggling to keep our heads above water...anyway, this year I’ve had a great Christmas and I’m trying to decide what to note down as the highlight.

Hmm. Let’s think.

It could’ve been Christmas Eve. A meal out then the movies with Alex, my mum and the kids. I love that we all still enjoy doing that together. I also loved the banter afterwards as we argued about whether we should open our presents at midnight or in the morning. I was doing an early morning SAMS shift and wouldn’t be home till the back of nine on Christmas morning. Alex and the boys were going off for their traditional run up Dumyat (a local hill) with other members of our athletics club at ten thirty – would that hour and a half window be enough time for us all to open all of our pressies?! It’d already been decided that we were doing the round-robin-one-pressie-at-a-time thing, so with six of us taking shots each, present opening was going to take a while! Come midnight, we still hadn’t come to a decision but, fortunately, it was kind of taken out of our hands; after hugging and wishing each other a Merry Christmas, Alex left us to sort it out while he went to the loo (or so we thought...) A few moments later, me, my mum and my three over-sixteen-year-old kids had our conversation interrupted by the sound of a bell ringing and a loud “Ho Ho Ho!” coming from the hall. In a cloud of snow (the wee round paper bits that collect in the base of a paper-punch) in burst Santa (Alex in full Santa gear) himself! “Merry Christmas!”, Santa shouted, quickly followed by, “Shit! I forgot my beard!”.

Off he ran, as quickly as he’d appeared, leaving behind a lot of laughter. Take two was more successful, when Santa re-appeared wearing his big white beard. Once he’d adjusted his tummy stuffing, he proceeded to hand us all wee presents from his big sack. So, at midnight, we opened our Santa presents – the rest could wait till morning! I’ve come to the conclusion that as our kids get older, Alex definitely gets younger – at heart anyway! (Though, you’re never too old for Santa....)

What else has been a highlight? Hmm. Let’s think.

It could’ve been speaking on the radio on Christmas morning! When I got in to the car to drive home after my Samaritans shift, I switched on the radio and Des Clarke (the Capital Radio Breakfast Show DJ) was saying, “I’d like to hear from everyone that’s been out, or is still out, working this Christmas morning. The text number is...”. I don’t think I’ve ever contacted a radio station before in my whole life, but I thought it would be a good wee mention for the SAMS, so I quickly sent off a text just saying that I was on my way home after a SAMS duty and would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. The drive home takes around twenty five minutes, so I listened intently to Des’s chat – hoping for that wee mention - and singing along to the songs in between. By the time I was turning into the village, I’d given up hope of hearing the SAMS mentioned. To be honest, I was a bit miffed as Des had given a mention to some bloke working for a charity looking after stray dogs. Now, I’ve got absolutely nothing against stray dogs but I was like, ‘Come On Des! Surely if you can say hello to the guy at the stray dogs shelter you can say hello to the wifey at Samaritans?!’. Next thing, my phone rang. I just assumed it was someone phoning from home to see when I was coming so that the pressie opening could commence. “Helloooo! I’m nearly home! Two minutes and I’ll be there”, I shouted. (Am I the only person that shouts at the hands-free thingy in their cars?!) “Oh, Hi Jane. Merry Christmas! This is James from Capital Radio. Would you be willing to go live on air and have a word with Des...?” Next thing I knew, less than a minute later, I was pulling in to my driveway and Des was on the line saying we were about to go live. Now, here was a golden opportunity to raise SAMS awareness and chat about all the folk that struggle at this time of year. But, the adrenalin took over, I got all over-excited and spent the whole two minutes that I was on wishing everyone and their granny a ‘Merry Christmas’ and plugging every Heart of Scotland choir gig that came in to my mind!! It’s the second time that I’ve spoken to Des Clarke (I wrote about the first time on a previous post), and both times I’ve been just a tad over-the-top! I’m hoping that some day I’ll get the opportunity to show him that I’m actually quite normal really! So, yup, that was good fun and – even though it was a bit of a missed opportunity to raise SAMS awareness, it let me give a bit of a plug to something else that’s very close to my heart – and was definitely one of my highlights over Christmas.



But that wasn’t the only highlight on Christmas Day. Let’s think, what else?

Opening our pressies; waving the boys off – clad in Santa hats and carrying mulled wine and mince pies in rucksacks – as they left for their run up Dumyat; making a start on the Christmas dinner preparations with my mum and Gemma while the boys were away – it all made me feel toasty inside. Gemma made a rare job of spreading the butter under the turkey’s skin (a job that gives me the heeby-jeeby’s) and mum made a rare job of making the lunch time soup. But we all contributed equally to the plentiful blethering! Yup, that was definitely a highlight of the day.

There were definitely some others though.

I’d taken an executive decision that we all had to choose an ‘activity’ or ‘something’ we could all join in with on Christmas Day. I’d said it could be absolutely anything, as long as all six of us could do it together. I’d said that we weren’t allowed to tell each other what we’d chosen to do until Christmas Day, and I’d said that nobody was allowed to complain about anybody else’s choice. I’m Mum, I make the rules.

My mum had taken the word ‘activity’ a bit too literally, so after our soup we all found ourselves in the lounge, lined up in front of the telly, doing Mum’s Weight Watcher’s exercise DVD! It’s safe to say we laughed more than we exercised and all had a whole lot of fun. I stood at the back and soaked in the sight of my seventy five year old mum leading me, Alex (dressed as Santa again with the red trousers replaced by his running shorts) and the kids in a routine of side-bends and stretches! So, a high benchmark was set by Gran; the rest of us would have a hard job matching her chosen activity in the 'good fun' stakes!

Next, it was Gordon’s turn. He’d decided that we were to sit round the kitchen table and play a card game of Monopoly. I didn’t know you could get Monopoly as a card game, but it didn’t make much of a difference; I was just as rubbish at the card game as I am at the board game! It wasn’t long before I was completely bankrupt and Alex had cleaned us all out to win the game. More importantly, we got through the whole game without anyone falling out, without anyone being accused of cheating and without anyone complaining that it wasn’t fair. Probably a first in the history of Milne family games, so it was another hit in the Christmas Day activity stakes!

We had a wee break so that Gordon could play with his new toy for a while (Gordon got an iphone from Santa. He’d no idea he was getting one and it’d been brilliant to see his reaction after opening several boxes within boxes. Ocht, you’re never too old for boxes within boxes...) and I could do a bit more dinner prep! Then it was my turn to tell everyone what my chosen ‘thing’ was. Anyone who reads this blog regularly could probably have predicted my choice, so the rest of my family weren’t at all surprised when I told them we were all going to have a sing-song together. Now, that’s not all that unusual in our house, but I’d decided we weren’t just going to sing, we were going to sing in harmony! So, I took Alex to one corner to teach him the low harmony part, Gordon took his Gran and his big brother off to another corner to learn the melody and Gemma took herself off to another room to learn the middle harmony part; twenty minutes later we all got together (picture the Partridge Family except much cooler and without the big white teeth and perfect timing...) and sang the Milne version of one of my favourite choir songs. Aw, I know sounds a bit naff, but I just loved it – and my wee family did Annie’s arrangement proud!

As if that wasn’t enough excitement for one Christmas Day, we still had our dinner to get through. It was definitely a case of “it’s not what’s on the table, but who’s sitting around it that matters!” All the fun and frivolity throughout the day meant that the turkey was a little bit overdone, the spuds were a wee bit soggy and the gravy was a big bit lumpy! But the wine was just right and - on top of the little aperitifs we’d been supping earlier (t’was thirsty work doing all those activities..) – it ensured that the volume of the chit-chat and laughter rose steadily as the meal progressed! Even though the food wasn’t up to my usual standards, Christmas dinner was one of the highlights of the day.

Now, there was a time that the Master of the Milne house’s Man Drawer would’ve contained every type of battery imaginable. Alas, that was when the kids were little and had all sorts of toys that required all sorts of batteries. Just for a laugh, Ross had bought a kiddie’s game that required 2 ‘C’ batteries – none of which were to be had in any of our drawers. So, Ross’s choice of ‘thing to do’ (‘Elefun’, which involves trying to catch, in little nets, little paper butterflies that shoot out of a long, blue elephant’s trunk that’s attached to a motorised fan disguised as a toy elephant) had to be abandoned. Alex did have a go at trying to set up a sort of Heath Robinson contraption with one of our electric fans, but it failed miserably. The whole palaver was so entertaining and watching Alex and Ross trying to get this wee kiddies game to work was priceless. Nope, you’re definitely never too old for kiddies games at Christmas...

By the time we moved on to Alex’s choice of ‘something to do’ it was fairly late in the evening and the wine and other festive spirits had been flowing for quite a long time. Alex doesn't like the board game 'Cranium', but the rest of us do. So, none of us were too surprised when he announced that that was his choice. If you’re familiar with the game, you’ll know it helps to have a bit of artistic talent. It involves making wee plasticine models, drawing doodles, doing charades, solving anagrams - it's like a load of different games rolled in to one. So, as the least artistic members of the family, Ross and I were delighted to come up trumps as the winners. It was just as well that the game ended when it did as some of the plasticine models were becoming just a wee bit inappropriate...! Laughing at Gordon trying to keep his cool while his sozzled Dad tried to act, make models, draw and spell; and at Gemma being the most patient I’ve ever seen her as she made sure that her Gran didn’t feel too inadequate with her acting, model-making, drawing and spelling, and sharing lots of laughs with my team-mate as we romped home to victory - all contributed to making it such a great highlight of my day.

Gemma’s game was put onto the back boiler as we’d kind of forgotten that there’s a limited number of hours in a day. Even Christmas Day. So, knowing Gemma, we can look forward to some sort of imaginative and challenging activity in the Milne household in the not-too-distant future!

It dawned on me, as we all stumbled off to bed, that the telly hadn’t been on all day (except for Gran's exercise DVD!). I liked that. As I settled down for the night, I had a bit of a fuzzy head and a bit of an aching tummy; I’m not sure if it stemmed from the not-quite-up-to-scratch dinner or the non-stop laughing. Either way, it didn’t stop me going out like a light with a smile on my face and quietly thanking my lucky stars for my wee family. I love them all very much and they’d all contributed to a Christmas full of far too many highlights to mention!

I woke up the next morning hoping that another batch of festive highlights would ensue when more of my family, along with Alex’s family and our oldest friends came later for our traditional Boxing Day gathering. I wasn’t to be disappointed! Now, let’s think, what was the highlight of Boxing Day?

Hm, on second thoughts, that’s maybe best left for some other time....!