Friday 25 December
Christmas Day
It’s Christmas Day. We woke around 6am and I came downstairs to make a cup of tea for me and Lisa. The stockings were there on the floor infront of the fire place and the kids were still asleep.
But it didn’t take long before Adora’s bedroom door handle rattled and she knocked on our door arms waving with festive excitement. We had drunk about half of our tea.
So, downstairs to the front room, carols from King’s College playing in the background. Adora had made coffee, Mabel was even more excited than she was. The kids sat on the floor surrounded by presents wrapped in two different paper styles to distinguish them under the tree. First, we do the stockings, taking it in turns, then the presents. It’s fabulous how some traditions come with you from your own childhood and family ways, others you make yourself.
Last night we opened our charity shop gifts after dinner at the table. We had taken a name and had to buy a present for them. It was a nice thing to do and we will do it each year from now on.
One of my favourite Christmas songs is Greg Lake’s I Believe in Father Christmas. It was written by him with words by Peter Subfield and was written as a protest to the commercialisation of the festive holiday. I was five years old when it was released and do remember it appearing on top of the pops in the yeras that followed. I love that Sinfield referred to it as “a picture postcard Christmas, with morbid edges.” And as I get older I find that Christmas feels like that, the innocence of it through child’s eyes has been clouded by the reality of the cost, over indulgence and waste. I still love it but not in the same way.
Our neighbour dropped a Christmas card through the door yesterday evening, along with some sprigs of mistletoe. In the envelope were two Buzzard feathers, they are beautiful and so light and the softest of all the primaries I have. For such a large bird to soar on thermals, they would need to be. In the middle of winter, I was transported back to the summer and the posts I made of watching these amazing birds above our house and over the orchards. Although they rarely leave these shores in the winter they do keep a much lower profile. I miss them.
After a fabulous dinner, outside for a walk and the sunshine. Cold and crisp.
Reflections on the day. So, it’s certainly been a weird one. We ate Christmas dinner, for the first time as a gang of four. We walked the lanes as if it was any other day. Wearing a face mask, I took a foil wrapped dinner to Dad this evening for him to eat on his own. Lisa’s family came over for part of the evening, there were times when it felt almost normal, but there was that persistent realisation to maintain social distancing and no hugs.
But the most poignant for me, was when I wrote the gift tags for my the kids presents that Dad gave me to give yesterday. “Dear Stan/Adora, Happy Christmas from Grandad” and I very nearly forgot to add “Nanny” too. It brought a lump to my throat. I guess it all comes with being fifty and growing up, again.
The Bald Birder 