Box of Delights
December 1st - advent calendars are cracked open and all over the country children are jazzed up on sugar by 6.30am. Another 23 chocolate fuelled mornings to look forward to. The toddler screamed 'I want steps' repeatedly for the half hour drive home (he wanted to walk down the orchard steps from school, but we took the path, hence the tantrum). Half an hour. My fingernails were embedded in the steering wheel by the time I got home. Maybe I should just say the hound ate all the calendars ... but that wouldn't be very festive would it?
I normally love Christmas - not the commercial Xmas but the proper thing (smell of a real tree, beeswax candles, mistletoe, Nativities, frosty walks, mulled wine, candlelit mass). This year I can't summon the energy - but I'm determined to kick this bah-humbug feeling into touch for the sake of the kids. So, the pilot is working over Christmas - will just have to cope like always. Yes, another year has gone by without seeing the book published/settling in our own home. Yes, it's been a tough, agonising year waiting for news thanks to yours truly's determination to get published ... but everyone's had a hard time, everyone's facing a hundred challenges - and just when it should cheer everyone up, Christmas suddenly makes everything feel 100 times worse. Why is that? Because we all suddenly feel like we should have the perfect home/family? Let's face it - everything is relative. The pilot brought home tales from India last week of families and young children - just like yours and mine - living on the side of the road with nothing but the rags they were wearing and a few cooking pots. Whatever we feel we are having to do without, we have a great deal to be thankful for.
Well, writers and artists are nothing if not imaginative. Don't know about you, but I'm going to do my best to make this the best Christmas I can, starting today with some clips from possibly the most fabulous winter tale ever broadcast on the BBC. In 1985 they adapted John Masefield's 'Box of Delights' - if you've never read it, it's a wonderful Christmas tale to read with the kids (oh be honest - it's a wonderful tale full stop!) I remember everyone rushing home from school to watch the next installment - sitting in front of a log fire by the TV with supper. It had everything - vicars turning into wolves, snowy battles, genuinely scary villains (including a Mrs Pouncer - any relation of Miss Scarlet's friend?) and special effects that still look pretty good over twenty years later. Enjoy.
(Does anyone remember how bizarrely Herne the Hunter's hair went from looking perfectly normal to suddenly all glam rock?)
TODAY'S PROMPT: At university I spent a couple of Christmases working in Harrods - seeing grown women rip an Escada skirt in two in their frenzy to bag a bargain in the sales put me off the commercial side of Christmas for life. What are your feelings about Christmas this year? Same as ever or is everyone feeling pressurised? Why not write Christmas lists with your children today - post them off to Father Christmas with your address and they may even get a reply (ours did last year and they loved it). Or why not write a Christmas list yourself in your journal - not necessarily material objects, but things that would make you really happy this Christmas - and take the first steps to making your dreams come true.
