I got to the office today to find Pedro drinking Christmas tea. Cloves, cinnamon, a little wooded spicy scent, and pine, floating out of the cup into an aroma that’s like being hugged with tinsel.
He gave me some to try. It was awful.
It’s funny how Christmas out-of-season seems so wrong. I think you’re supposed to forget it was Christmas by February, then barely mention it in March while you’re busy concentrating on pancakes and Easter eggs. You get away with bringing it into conversation in the summer, so long as you’re also horrified by shops putting a small selection of ornaments out in the heatwave. It makes it okay to talk about it you’re horrified about it, apparently.
Then again in our house, Whamaggedon might as well be running all year round; my wife loves Christmas. Before the leaves turn we’ll probably have Mary’s Boy Child and ‘a ray of hope’, echoing and glistening in the sunlit kitchen. So I don’t know why I’m complaining about Pedro’s Christmas tea.
It tasted a bit like liquid air freshener. Or the pulp of a pot-pourri. All the zing of a herbal infusion jabbing you in the back of the throat as though you tried to inhale a cinnamon stick. I didn’t say anything. I just thanked Pedro for letting me try some.
I did wonder though, whether I would have liked it much better if it had happened to have been December. Perhaps that warming blend of home comfort would have eased me in like a cosy jumper, or Mario Lanza singing ‘Good King Wenceslas’ over the crackle of an open log fire.
I gave it one more sip. I doubt it.
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