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As Isabel Allende put it in her latest memoir 'The Sum of Our Days', this time of year 'the 1000 tasks of maternity and matrimony' seem to multiply tenfold, so this post is for anyone who needs to buy themselves five minutes - why not put the kids in front of the monitor and let Tom & Jerry do their Christmas magic. Isn't it amazing how available everything is now? I remember seeing this cartoon - only once - when I was little and have never forgotten Jerry sliding gleefully round the candy cane, playing with his reflection in the baubles. I've always hoped they'd replay it one Christmas but today is the first time I've seen it in around thirty years. Good old Youtube
Allende talks at one point about her tribe of best women friends 'The Sisters of Perpetual Disorder' - we joked in the pub the other night this might be a good nickname for our bookclub. Perpetual disorder just about sums it up at the moment. A friend started saying yesterday how she had written all her cards, wrapped the gifts, and it was all I could do to smile admiringly rather than stick my fingers in my ears and go lalalalala to drown out the contented tirade. Christmas is going to happen inevitably - I just can't quite see how at the moment.
TODAY'S PROMPT: What are your best Christmas memories? Forget about family feuds, frenzied shopping, overeating (oh, go on, just one more Quality Street, you know you want to ...). Why not cherrypick one or two of your treasured memories and work them into the plot of a short story? D'Arcy mentioned yesterday how the scent of oranges always makes her feel festive. One year I remember Dad coming home with a whole crate of tangerines still with their leaves attached from the greengrocer in the nearest moorland town. Sounds crazy, but I had never seen so many tangerines (I told you I grew up in a remote place). It seemed crazily extravagant and luxurious. You could write a whole story just based on a single memory like that.
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9 comments:
I lost my internet connection just as I posted my comment!
I was saying how I remember watching this Tom and Jerry cartoon and it was snowing outside. I'm sure it used to be screened every Xmas Eve instead of the six O'Clock news on BBC1. Wonderful animation and music.
I think it's going to be an Amazon.com Christmas. I will do my cards tomorrow.
Sx
Really? Every year - wow. I just remember seeing it the once and loving it. Shame we can't all sit down with some mulled wine and do all our cards together ...
What a lovely memory. I used to adore Tom & Jerry, long after I should have outgrown them, and I haven't see a good T&J cartoon for yonks. Thank you so much for posting this, Kate.
Kate, it is so true how one memory can truly shape an entire story. I think for me, a priceless Christmas memory would be the one year I worked in New York, on 5th Avenue, and passed the Rockefeller tree each evening as I left work. There was something magical about seeing that tree in real life each night, smelling it's pine, seeing the skaters, watching the bustle. The snow coated the griminess of the city and made everything this pristine glow. It was energetic, I was alive and living my dreams in a big city, it was a perfect Christmas.
Giggling in the space under the stairs with my big sister at my mum's 'grown-up' xmas party, sucking twiglets and thinking I was the height of sophistication because someone had given me a Babycham ...
Thank you Kate for nudging me into thinking about this. And I'm always grateful for Tom and Jerry
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Hi Tessa - still love T&J (somehow they seem gloriously un-politically correct and gently nostalgic ...)
D'Arcy - magical! I've always wanted to visit NY at Christmas time ... makes me think of When Harry Met Sally - can almost hear Harry Connick Jr while reading your comment!
Megan - oh Babycham ... That takes me back! Hope you had a Morello cherry in it!
Standing at the door on Christmas Eve, snow falling waiting for my extended family to descend on the house so Christmas could really begin.
As a hopelessly nostalgic romantic, I've got way too many favorite Christmas memories to list them all. If I had to pick one, though... hmm...
Well, one favorite was the time I stayed home with Dad to decorate the tree (he never let us do it before 12/24, something of a romantic himself). Everyone else had gone over to my grandparents' place on some pre-The Day errand or another.
As we worked from the lights, to the tinsel layer, to the hanging ornaments, Dad continued to refresh his cocktails. (He usually drank beer, but this was An Occasion.) He didn't drink enough to get really plastered -- just to get gradually mellower and more entertaining, until I dropped all pretense of decorating the tree and just enjoyed his company.
Lindsay - snow falls on Xmas Eve so rarely in the UK ... what a lovely thought
JES - magical! I tried to put up fairylights for the littlies yesterday (pilot away) - they are now half on half off (no idea why) but they still thought it was great bless them.
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