Well so. I’m signing off for Christmas. The Intrepids are watching the Third-Best Scrooge, I’m drinking loose-leaf tea and munching my way through a homemade mince pie, and pretty much everything’s alright with the world.
Even Tiny Tim is beaming. And he’s on crutches. For some reason he’s wound up with a cut-glass RP accent in this one: seems unlikely. “The whole goose, Father? Oh this shall be the finest Christmas!” Hmm.
So, I dropped off my neighbour’s Christmas card, bade a Merry Christmas to the other set who were just togged up to walk the dog, and then I set off through the twilight.
“What time’s midnight communion?” I asked. My Dad laughed and then told me to check on the Internet. Once the Third-Best Scrooge is over and we’ve had what my Mum has just described as a ‘light supper’ I’ll finish off the last bit of wrapping and then later I’ll be off for that little oasis of tradition, one more time.
A lot of these Christmas stories are tales of redemption, aren’t they? The cold-hearted miser comes good, the broken family pulls together, the townsfolk rally around the transformed hero. Tiny Tim asks God to bless us (every one) as though auditioning for a job as a continuity announcer on Radio 4, and everything’s okay in the end. It’s as though the redemption story flows through this season like vintage wine.
And yet my suggestion of watching the original Star Wars trilogy isn’t Christmassy enough. Apparently.
Oh well. On with the wrapping. The cherry brandy’s open now too, so a dark glass of contentment sparkles on the coffee table while the reformed Scrooge dances about in 60s monochrome and his dressing gown, ‘giddier than a schoolboy’.
Merry Christmas everyone.
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