On the Sixth Day of Christmas

Happy Christmas!  Are you still celebrating, or is it all over for you?  We begin our decorating and celebrating later than most people and I like to keep going for the whole twelve days.

 

Tradition is important to us at Christmas, the same rituals being performed year after year, reminding us of Christmases past and the shared memories cementing us together but as time moves on some things change and some rituals are discarded because they simply don't fit any more.  So, on the First Day of Christmas The Mathematician bounded into our bedroom to sit on our bed and open the small gifts which Father Christmas had left for her while she was sleeping, even though she is twenty-one years old.  There was the familiar clementine, the chocolate money, the small box of her favourite chocolates and the new treats which befit her age.  Later, she drove us to her sister's house where, in a break from tradition, we opened our gifts and shared the feast, set on a table laid with my great grandmother's tablecloth.  Everyone had a hand in preparing this feast but my only contribution was making stock with a chicken carcass the previous day which the Best Beloved then used to make the gravy which we took with us.  I got off pretty lightly and I am hugely grateful for a day in which I neither cooked nor washed up. 

 

On the Second Day of Christmas The Teacher, Tom Kitten and Flashman went to his parents' house and the Best Beloved, The Mathematician and I went to Blists Hill Victorian Town for a grown-up brunch in the Forest Glen Refreshment Pavilion.  We were greeted with fizz and canapés before eating a hot breakfast, then we indulged in croissants and bagels before finishing with chocolate tiffin and hot chocolate.  There were Christmas crackers, white linen tablecloths and a happy atmosphere and afterwards, beneath pale sunshine, we wandered around the museum for a while.  It was a new way for us to spend Boxing Day and we all enjoyed it.

The picture in the middle of this photo shows the Forest Glen in its original setting at the foot of The Wrekin.  The building was moved to Blists Hill in the early 1990s. 



I love these "paper" chains - they are made of felt and stitched together.



 

 

On the Third Day of Christmas we went to Cardiff to join the rest of my family, as we have done on this day for the last few years - my parents, my sisters, their partners and my niece and nephews.  There were twenty-one of us.  We always go to the theatre together in the afternoon on this day but this year, there was something important for us to do together first: we said our goodbyes to my grandparents.  It is several years since they died but we have been waiting for the right time and the right occasion, and this was it.  My father had bought two large planters for the garden and into each he tipped some compost, and then we added my grandparents' ashes.  One by one we came forward, first my parents, then me, my sisters and our children, and each of us shared a memory while using a trowel to add some of the ashes to the planters.  Some of the memories were funny, all were fond; when the youngest boy, born two years after my grandmother died, said, "But I didn't know Nanny," my father gently replied, "Then just come and say goodbye," and he did.  When all were done, we charged our glasses and raised a toast.  We would have like to sing but our hearts wouldn't let our voices rise.  It was beautiful, very moving and just right and although it may seem strange to have left it for years, those years meant that we were no longer overwhelmed by grief and could remember Nanny and Gramps as they were, rather than focus on our own loss. 

 

The theatre?  Miss Saigon and it was good, the helicopter was amazing, but I wish the singers' diction had been better so that I could have made out all the words. 

 

On the Fourth Day of Christmas we left Cardiff and my family and slowly drove home through heavy traffic.  We just made it to Birmingham Airport in time for The Mathematician to catch her flight to Paris, where she is spending the New Year.  She's so grown up!

 

On the Fifth Day of Christmas the Best Beloved and I gave ourselves a special gift: a day for just ourselves.  I really do love being with my family, especially at this time of year, and I loved spending lots of time with my friends during the week before Christmas, but I was ready for a quiet day.  I drank buckets of tea, ate some chocolate, did quite a lot of crochet, watched a film and didn't leave the house.  I enjoyed the lights on the Christmas tree and the candles on the mantelpiece.  I didn't speak to anyone except the Best Beloved and I thought about my grandparents a lot.  It was a refreshing, restorative day. 

 

I know that Christmas is a difficult time for some people and if you are one of those people, you are probably feeling relieved that it's over.  I've been there and I really do understand that.  However, for me this year, it's not over yet and I am cherishing these days of small treats when the pressures and distractions of day-to-day life are put aside.  Tonight we'll open a bottle of wine, light up the mantelpiece and the Christmas tree and count our blessings.

 

See you soon.

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

 

 

 

 

Scenes from the Perfect Christmas Film

Hello, thank you for popping in, especially as I expect you are very busy with just a few days to go before Christmas.  It's lovely to see you here.

Imagine, if you will, that it's a week before Christmas and one dark, cold, cloudless evening a group of close friends set off to drive out into the countryside, laughing and chatting all the way.  As they drive further away from the towns and villages, leaving the lights behind, the sky becomes darker and when they reach their destination, they step out of the cars into the crisp night and see all the stars in the sky shining gloriously above them, let by bold Orion.  They point it out to each other in awe.  Behind the trees, they make out the ruins of an ancient castle and next to it, a church, its stained glass windows lit up like boiled sweets by the lights within.

Well wrapped up in coats and scarves and still chatting excitedly, the friends walk carefully up the dark path, swinging torches before them with gloved hands to light the way for their booted feet.  When they arrive at the church door, they are greeted warmly with cups of hot mulled wine and invited to find seats.  The stones of the building, almost a thousand years old, are bedecked with Christmas glitter and greenery and as they fill two pews, a smiling woman in a red coat comes to them bearing a tray of hot mince pies.  The church fills up as more and more people arrive and then the brass band, who are seated in the chancel, strike up "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful".  The friends sing lustily, along with everyone else in the packed church, whether faithful or not, and a carol service unfolds with familiar bible readings, unfamiliar poems, children wearing golden crowns to match the instruments in the band, candy canes for everyone and a sermon which places the story of a humble young couple seeking safety and shelter firmly in the reality of the present.

 

I haven't imagined this, although it was all so perfect that, afterwards, I wondered if I had done.  This was the carol service I went to earlier this week at St Bartholomew's Church in Moreton Corbet and I was one of those close friends.  I went to the same service last year with The Mathematician and raved about it so much that my friends wanted to come with me this time (and The Mathematician is not yet home from university).  We have had a rough year and this service was exactly what we needed to do together - honestly, if you wanted a blueprint for the perfect carol service, I think this would be it, although you would also have to arrange the weather and the stars, and perhaps a ruined castle.

Many people love a carol service, whether or not they believe in the Nativity story at its centre.  Those carols which we have heard every year since we were children, finding the words come to our lips easily, can conjure up happy memories of Christmases past, the feelings of excitement we had when we were children, looking forward to all the gifts Father Christmas would bring us, looking forward to time off school and, later, work, looking forward to seeing the family members we only saw at holiday time, looking forward to parties, pantomimes and gluttonous amounts of guilt-free chocolate.  Happy memories of Christmases past surface and we sing our hearts out in an effort to sing that happiness into the present.  

Thank you, St Bartholomew's, for giving my friends and me the perfect carol service.

See you soon.

 

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

 

 

 

Snowy Shropshire

Hello, thank you for calling in.  I am feeling a bit sheepish.  I have been hugely distracted by the weather and I have neglected you for longer than I intended.  Sorry.

We knew that the snow was coming in on Friday but we didn't know how much of it there would be: it began to fall early in the morning and by the end of the day there was 15cm.  We didn't have a single flake last winter and it's several years since we saw this much snow, so on Saturday the Best Beloved and I decided to cast our plans aside and make the most of it.  When we opened the bedroom curtains we were greeted by this glorious sight, my beloved hawthorn dressed all in white in front of a blue sky - 

The Best Beloved donned his boots and ventured out into the back garden to assess the situation.

Then we set off for Wenlock Edge in the car.  However, we got as far as the River Severn before discovering that the rest of the road was closed, so we turned the car eastwards and drove along beside the river through a winter wonderland.  The road is lined with trees and their leafless branches looked SO beautiful dressed in white.  We parked the car so that the Best Beloved could get out and take some photographs of the power station, no longer operative and due for demolition next year.  The cooling towers have been part of the landscape of the Gorge for fifty years, extra money having been spent to stain the concrete when they were built in an effort to make them fit more harmoniously, and many people hoped that they would be retained when the rest of the complex is demolished, but it's not to be, the whole lot will be demolished and replaced by new housing.

When we reached Ironbridge, we parked the car and went for a little walk.  

Everywhere I looked, I gasped with delight.  There were a few people around, but not many, and I felt a bit sorry for the shopkeepers who must have been expecting lots of trade on this December Saturday, but I also felt very happy to be in this other-wordly atmosphere, away from the usual hustle and bustle.  It was strange really, the snow made everything feel very Christmassy but the quiet fought against that.  Perhaps it was a proper Advent hush?

The snow began to fall again in the early hours of Sunday morning and continued all day, not stopping until after we had gone to bed.  Many churches and businesses were closed because their staff simply couldn't get to them.   I sat beside the window watching six or seven blackbirds sheltering within the snow-laden holly bush outside, systematically stripping its branches of berries and regularly squabbling noisily.  Knowing that we had plenty of food and fuel and no need to go out anywhere, it felt rather special.  I sent the Best Beloved out into the garden again on Monday morning and he reported back that we had a further 10cm of snow, so 25cm altogether (that's 10" in old money).  Having been brought up on the south coast of England, he said that it's the biggest snowfall he's ever seen.  He was VERY excited.  We are not used to dealing with deep snow in this country and we don't cope with it very well: only the main roads are cleared or gritted so many people find themselves unable to get their cars out of their streets.  Consequently, a rather celebratory atmosphere descends and the air is full of laughter as schools are closed and parents take their children out to build snowmen, throw snowballs and generally make the most of the white stuff. We did this, too: we drove to The Teacher's house (very slowly) so that the Best Beloved could take her out to play on the sledge his father bought for him and his siblings when he was a child, but not before she ensured that Tom Kitten was the fourth generation of his family to enjoy a ride.

There's something else I'd like to share with you: three hospitals in this county put out a general call for owners of 4x4 vehicles to help with transporting staff to and from the hospitals so that services could be maintained and it seems that people rose to the call magnificently, asking that their passengers made donations to the hospitals or to the local air ambulance in return.  One driver reported that he had four hours sleep in two days, he was so busy.  Staff, too, stayed beyond the ends of their shifts to ensure that wards and clinics wouldn't have to close.  Now that amount of goodwill is, it seems to me, very Christmassy.

See you very soon.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

Experiencing Christmas

Hello, thank you for dropping in.  It turns out that I am rubbish at blogging every day.  I was overambitious.  Sorry.  Perhaps I should simply attempt to blog every other day and then if I did manage every day, the extras would be a bonus?  Hmm.

This week I have been helping schoolchildren to learn about the reason Christmas is called Christmas rather than, say, Dickensmas in an event called Experience Christmas which takes them through the story from The Annunciation to Epiphany.  It does feel rather early in the month, but the schools here break up for the holidays at the end of next week, a full ten days before Christmas.  I don't know which local authority official made that decision and I suspect he or she will have to keep a low profile because I don't actually know any parents who want to have their hyped-up, overexcited children at home for all that length of time, but I suppose it gives teachers time to prepare for their own celebrations...unless they have hyped-up, overexcited children of their own at home, of course.  So far, one hundred and eighty children have sat on the mats in front of me, listened, reacted and reflected.  I am enjoying it very much and I think the children are, too.

Here is Mary's kitchen, where she was busy with domestic chores when the Angel Gabriel appeared out of nowhere to tell her that she was going to have a very special baby - 

Snapped rather hastily on my 'phone just before the children arrived.

As I asked the children, how would you feel if you were in your kitchen and you turned round to find a great, big, shining, warrior of light standing there, calling your name??  Exactly! 

Bookending the story, at least for the time being, is Epiphany and here is my gold, frankincense and myrrh - alternatively, as one child put it, my gold, Frankenstein and myrrh!  There's always one.

I can take no credit for these lovely scenes, other people have prepared them and I simply turn up in the mornings and deliver, along with some friends.  I have been well looked after with Earl Grey tea and mince pies and all the children, whatever their ethnicity or belief, have gone home with a little more knowledge about the origins of Christmas, some thoughts about how it's relevant to them and a chocolate coin.  Teachers, I hope, have gone away with a positive view of the church and its place in its community (we have received feedback that we are well-organised and very welcoming).

Today is 6th December, St Nicholas' Day, a day to celebrate the patron saint of children and at this time when I don't have any little people at home I am glad to have been given this opportunity to be around other people's little people and share some Christmas with them.

See you tomorrow, or maybe the day after.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

On Advent Sunday...

Hello, thank you for dropping in.  If you dropped in yesterday expecting to find a new post I am very sorry - my good intentions failed on only the 3rd December.  Sigh.  My excuse is that we went to see The Mathematician, who won't be home from university until a few days before Christmas and who is feeling the academic pressure.  We got home later than we intended after a lovely day with her and although there was still time for me to fulfil another part of my Advent plan, there wasn't enough time to write about it here. 

Yesterday was Advent Sunday, the fourth Sunday before Christmas.  I have sought some clerical clarification about when Advent begins in the Anglican church and received the answer that...it's debatable!  Apparently, if we are observing Advent personally in our homes it begins the day after the Feast of Christ the King, so that's six days before Advent Sunday. However, it doesn't begin in terms of church worship until Advent Sunday.  If the clergy can't work out a definitive answer, I don't think there's any hope for the rest of us!  

So, now we are all definitely in the season of Advent, which I love for its quietness, its candles, its preparations, its treats and the bubble of excitement which I can feel starting to surface.  Advent is a waiting time but not one of those when a sense of dread hangs over you, rather a time when we are looking forward to all the lovely things which will happen at its end.  I like to make a little step along the journey every day.  Over the weekend I cleared a shelf on the bookcase and put up my crib. -

Sorry this pic is overexposed.  I took it on my 'phone and I just couldn't get the lighting right: too dark with no flash and overexposed with flash.

We didn't have a crib at home when I was a child but I was always a bit obsessed with other people's and when an elderly friend asked me if she could give me hers more than twenty years ago, I was thrilled.  She wanted to pass it on to a good home because her son had bought her a new one from the Holy Land and as The Teacher was only six years old, my friend thought that she would like it.  She did and although it's not grand in any way and the figures are only plastic, it has woven its way into the fabric of our Christmas celebrations.  For some inexplicable reason, we couldn't find it last year and I felt a bit out of sorts without its comforting presence but a few weeks, ago, the Best Beloved bore it up from the cellar triumphantly, which really was odd because we have always kept it in the loft.  So here is the stable, humble and a bit shabby, which is entirely fitting if you think about it.  Mary, Joseph and the donkey haven't arrived yet because they are still travelling and so obviously, the shepherds and wise men haven't yet received any Good News, so they haven't arrived either.  There is just a solitary cow in the stable, waiting.  I hope she is as excited as I am.

See you tomorrow, hopefully.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

Advent Candles

Hello, thank you for dropping in, you are very welcome here.  If you read yesterday's post you will know that I am trying to write something here every day during December - well, perhaps every day between now and Christmas - and share my festive preparations with you.

I love candles at any time of year and really, at any time of day - I lit a candle while I had a bath yesterday morning - and so it seems natural that I count down the days to Christmas with an Advent candle.  I don't have an Advent wreath because we have so little space, but I can always find room for one solitary candle.  When my girls were small it was a special moment, the nightly lighting of the candle, and it was a useful way of showing them how many nights there were left before the huge excitement of Christmas Eve, but I think it was really for me!  The significance of one little flame dispelling the darkness is something I find both comforting and hopeful.

A couple of years ago I found a set of numbered Advent tealights and discovered that I preferred them to the traditional candle: for a start, they burned for much longer, and secondly, I didn't have to keep an eye on them to make sure that I didn't burn too many days at once, which often makes me a little anxious.  Nope, light the tealight, enjoy it for a couple of hours and once it's out, that's it, plenty of room for distraction and no harm done.  So, this year, these are my Advent candles - 

I bought this set in Laura Ashley a few days before Christmas last year, reduced from £16 to £5 and yes, I know £5 is a bit hefty but the price included the star-shaped tealight holder and I feel quite sure that I shall use it outside of Advent.  I always buy my Advent candles when the price is reduced in December and the miracle is that I can always find them the following year in time for Advent!  So now we are counting down, marking off the days one tealight at a time.

See you tomorrow.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x

So When Does Advent Begin?

Hello, thank you for popping in.  It's lovely to see you here.  Today is the first day of December and in the absence of any Bah Humbug from the Best Beloved, I am allowing the excitement to commence and, inspired by Marie at Candytuft Corner, who blogged every day in November, I am going to try to share some of my festive preparations here every day.  

I am not really sure when Advent begins this year: I had thought it to be on Advent Sunday, the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which is 3rd December, but last week an Anglican vicar told me that it begins the day after the Sunday on which the church celebrates Christ the King, which would mean that it began on Monday, 27th November.  Hmm.  However, as most calendars and calendars count down the days to Christmas from 1st December, I decided that I could begin my preparations today, which actually seems rather late, given the number of people who put up their Christmas trees last weekend.  I have never known so many people to put up their trees in November before and I wonder if they have thought, "Right then, it's Black Friday so that must mean it's Christmas."  I find it all quite odd.  Don't get me wrong, I love a Christmas tree but I like it to be just that, a Christmas tree, rather than a NovemberandDecember tree.

Another thing I like is mince pies.  I went to a meeting on 1st November and my lovely baking friend, who makes particularly good mince pies, had brought some of the delicious treats to keep us fuelled but as I was "keeping Christmas in December" I very politely declined, although I had to sit on my hands while I did so to stop one (or two) finding its way onto my plate.  My friend knows me well enough to understand and on Wednesday, after another meeting, she gave me a little package with instructions to open it today, which I did.  This is what I found - 

Isn't she lovely?  I really do have some wonderful friends.  So this evening, after dinner, I took a mince pie plate out of the bottom of the dresser and ate one in a proper fashion.  I might have another one in a minute, they are delish.  Christmas is coming, it's official.

See you tomorrow.

Love, Mrs Tiggywinkle x