In the end it was a thoroughly grey Christmas, with skies the colour of plastic drainpipes and air like the inside of a wine chiller. Woken up at ten past eight by my mother's voice shouting 'He's been' through the darkness, I rolled out of bed some time later and methodically set to work on this year's batch of presents - five paperback books, four bottles of alcohol, three pairs of socks, two framed pictures and a partridge in a pair of sunglasses.
We ticked off the traditions one by one: a fried breakfast followed by half an hour trying, and failing, to get one of those new interactive DVD quizzes to work, then start reading or fall asleep on the coach. Just after noon I got my bike out and pedalled to Marsden Bay, returning just in time for dinner, hurriedly punctual as ever at the stroke of two.
Whatever happened to Christmas tele? Did it really use to be that much better, or did I just have nothing more interesting to do when I was ten years old? I ended up watching a whole hour's worth - Doctor Who - over the last two days, and even that felt like slightly too much. Instead we knocked back a couple of bottles of wine and played a board game in the back room, giving up drunk, lethargic and stuffed full of food just as it was beginning to get interesting.
And that, to me, is what Christmas is all about, not the money swindle consumer mentality, Santa Claus or the religious add-ons. In what used to be the dead of winter it's still magical to have a few days with friends and family where all you have to do is eat, drink and be artificially merry.
Happy Christmas.
We ticked off the traditions one by one: a fried breakfast followed by half an hour trying, and failing, to get one of those new interactive DVD quizzes to work, then start reading or fall asleep on the coach. Just after noon I got my bike out and pedalled to Marsden Bay, returning just in time for dinner, hurriedly punctual as ever at the stroke of two.
Whatever happened to Christmas tele? Did it really use to be that much better, or did I just have nothing more interesting to do when I was ten years old? I ended up watching a whole hour's worth - Doctor Who - over the last two days, and even that felt like slightly too much. Instead we knocked back a couple of bottles of wine and played a board game in the back room, giving up drunk, lethargic and stuffed full of food just as it was beginning to get interesting.
And that, to me, is what Christmas is all about, not the money swindle consumer mentality, Santa Claus or the religious add-ons. In what used to be the dead of winter it's still magical to have a few days with friends and family where all you have to do is eat, drink and be artificially merry.
Happy Christmas.
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