righty-ho, another post for me. it's just nice to remember traditions n such stuff, because, probably in a spoilt middle class way, christmas doesn't feel right without the traditions so I want to think about them and record ours before they're forgotten. and i get the feeling i may go into slight bitching session mode over certain people (person) of the male persuasion who has been in my and others' lives over the last ...few... years and deserves some more insulting because he's an idiot.
but first i might just point out that during the most recent trip to pumsaint that I made, i noticed that Miss Kath, Mr "billice", Mr Ralph and my most dear Miss Janie were all rather even more attractive than i remembered them. so well done to them and keep up the good work.
anyway, on to christmas and stuff.
We always put up our decorations on christmas eve at mum's house. at dad's it was the weekend nearest christmas that we were with him. he had a plastc tree, same every year, and we hung baubells(sp?) along the rafter in the living room, some were old real glass ones, and there were these concertina-y paper fruit things that break a bit more every year. oh and the stockings either side of the TV.. "for decoration" which Mother Christmas conveniently noticed every year. we were each alowed to chose a new decoration each year and in recent years one of my favourittes has been a set of plastic tulips which i got from the museum. (now the ecologically unsound plastic tree has gone and dad wants to get rid of the tulips after mum laughed at them in the museum shop whilst looking for presents.).
At mum's though, we put up the cards before christmas eve, strung on string in the freezing cold sunroom, always too many for the space and seperated into "cheap" "christian" and "peaceful", except for the favourite few that were allowed to sit on the piano.
the tree came in a little before, or sat in the cold in the sunroom for a while, looking small and mangey in it's pot. we had to get a potted one so we weren't killing things (fair enough) and they were rarely more than a metre high.
christmas eve we brought the tree into the big room, the only place where decoration was allowed without causing grumps and discomfort from a certain male, and we would decorate it with our decorations, a different thing on top each year, and new chocolates too, of course. stockings laid out, which father christmas often got mixed up over, and in recent years the christmas fairy came for rod a few times, though was largely unapreciated, and the christmas elves for mum (she hadn't had a stocking since she was ten).
then, of course, the obligatory sleepless night before christmas, and getting up at about 5am to sit alone in the big room, the fire still burning from last night, waiting happily on the big soft blue.
-one of my favourite memories is on christmas eve, it must have been about three years ago, sitting on that same sofa reading 'to kill a mockingbird'. i was alone in the house, which was always, always heaven because it meant HE wasn't there, and had my dear sweet Me^l for company. it was sunny and calm and the light shone through that sunlight on the roof, high and I ate olive biscuits and read for hours in the calm house full of the freedom of emptiness. and the fire burnt, it was lovely.
anyway, on christmas day ben always told me to wake him at 7 or 8 but i rarely had the nerve and he'd eventually come down at half 8. another nice memory was talking with him for hours, with Paul Simon's Graceland on in the background, christmas morning after he'd left to go to uni... mum and rod hadn't got up yet and we were enjoying the calm before the tension that always came, because we were bloody trying to enjoy ourselves again, like the fools that we were. bah humbug.
we could open our stockings before breakfast, usually sending me into confusion as to which order i should eat: breakfast, chocolate or chocolate, breakfast.. then later when rod got up, and mum with him, we'd have the tense breakfast followed by having to show mum all the stuff we got in our stockings because, of course, she hadn't seen it before.
then the dog had to be taken for a walk. couldn't break the routine just because it was christmas day.. so ben and I would wait while the dog was excercised... generally a longer walk than normal, i think, and eventually they'd return, take an age to make tea or coffee or whichever damn drink the bloody unwritten timetable said was meant to be drunk at that point, and we could finally open presents, mum trying desperately to make that bastard join in in some way.
this, as per general christmas bathos rules, took a dissapointingly short time, and we were left to fiddle with new things and read books for the rest of the day before having a specual or purpousely unspecial meal, depending on the mood of the year. in the last few years rod would then go off to watch some of his usual crap on TV (in earlier years he told us off for watching crap - at least we were the ones who improved) and ben and I would go and make a mixed tape for car journeys to dad's, which was always quite nice.
we sometimes went on a christmas walk too, wich I probably spoilt by moaning, or ben and I would walk together and, oh so kindly, leave mum with rod (well.. she was the one that chose him, and even now she says she used to love him. the fool.) one year we went along the railway line to the viaduct, and would have gone along to suger loaf tunnel but I copmplained and didn't want to go so far. I wish we had now, I don't know if i'll get the chance again.
then boxing day, off to dad's for a few more presents, lots more chocolate and computer games for a week. i think once or twice we had christmas day at dad's and boxing day at mum and rod's but it never quite made sense.
i seem to have complained quite a bit. the complaints are aimed at rod. i didn't like him and don't like him and never liked him. i dislike him, infact. i don't like to say so, but it's true. he's an idiot. the guy probably can't help it but don;t care, i don't like him.
but i miss the big room, the calmness when he wasn't there, and most of all, the village and countryside. our field was lovely, we had a woods and an orchard and a river and grass and a woodshed.. it was perfect and I loved it. and central cyngordy was lovely. i want to come home from uni and walk down nesta's hill to the house from the train station with my bag, or go for walks at night and see the frost sparkle on the road, or watch the mice and voles run around in the garden, or see the river overflow its banks from my window, and run into the black and twisted woods by its side, it is such a beautiful village and i did and do love it dearly.
but it's better without him, and, while after or during a divorce, the "children" will often feel guilt for the breakup.. feel bad because they believe it was their fault, i can hold my head high, because I know that this was my fault and i'm proud of it. we wouldn't have got out if it weren't for me, i'm sure of it. maybe i'm taking too much credit, but i really think it's true.
though, theoretically, that means it was my fault when he tried to kill himself.
but now he has his new woman, and the story is, he's happy, and after he's been as awkward as he can be, and we have as little money as he can be sure of, then we can forget him and his bloody ..everything.
but i still love cynghordy. i do miss it
*sniff*
that was a broadcast from the nostalgic section of this company, next, the shipping forecast.
