I've got Tony Bennett on.
How do you keep the music playing?
...he croons, thanking the audience while they applaud the song.
Betwixtmas is definitely the time of year for this kind of thing. There is red wine in the glass and a warm sense of well-being in me, at the end of the family festivities. All that's missing is the leather arm-chair by the flickering fire.
It's in contrast to the frenzied Boxing Day shenanigans of earlier. As you might recall, Boxing Day is when we hit Nibling-Maximum.
And we hit it alright.
Within ten minutes, ten minutes! there were explosions, tears and catastrophes. Two had remote-controlled drones, one charger was broken and the other was plugged into the last remaining plug socket. Meanwhile, another was exiled to the cold conservatory for misbehaviour (currently the home of Hilary the Penguin) and the rest of us engaged in exasperated pizza preparation and drama-avoidance.
Well, I did. The pizza was my jokey idea - deep pan, crisp and even, I'd suggested for the 'Feast of Stephen'... I don't know if anyone else found it funny, but they went with it.
Tony's moved on to The Very Thought of You. He's 'living in a kind of daydream...' Good for you, Tony.
Hilary the Penguin, by the way, is a gigantic penguin who's taken up residence in my parents' conservatory. She's about four feet tall and has the habit of continually getting in the way of chairs and tables being shifted about the house. She just sits there with a silly knitted smile on her face while we do all the work.
This year's secret-santa went down well. I got a blender, which I explained was a way to get myself eating more fruit and vegetables. I got my Dad a jumper. Then my sisters each individually asked me whether I'm alright, to which I replied sleepily that I was just a little overwhelmed.
I don't cope with a lot of noise happening all at the same time. Unless it's music of course... like Tony Bennett's band who are currently soloing freestyle over eight bars each.
No, it's the cross-conversational parenting and disorganised discussing that I can't stand.
The children definitely don't need lots of people explaining why they shouldn't wave walking sticks like light-sabres. The parents don't need to play detective on who knocked the plate of pizzas onto the carpet while simultaneously being bombarded with loud and little voices all proclaiming that it 'wasn't them'.
I sit and observe this deterioration of moods, the explosions and the very predictable outcomes in those situations. I feel pretty helpless and hopeless. My voice doesn't need to be added to the white noise... which leaves me wondering what my actual role as the 'weird uncle' might mean.
Tony's left his heart in San Francisco again. Careless.
"You do have a lot to be thankful for," said my sister, kindly in response to me sitting there silently.
"I'm not ungrateful," I smiled. And I'm not, really. I just wish there were a better way to look after my Mum and my Dad who want to celebrate Christmas without their house being turned into a noisy kind of wrapping-papery playroom.
"Uncle Matthew," shouted someone at me, "Someone's disabled your iPad. But it definitely wasn't me."
I just hope that one day, when they're all grown up, these boisterous niblings will come and see me by my log fire at Christmas, and help me cook toast, set up my model trains and finish a bottle of red while we remember how things used to be.
Maybe we'll put Tony on and laugh about whatever became of Hilary the Penguin.
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