Scores on the Doors, please!

 So Advent is finally here.  All across the land families are opening Door 1 on the calendar and rejoicing in the wholesome Christmas-related images that lie behind it (unless you're my sister,  who is currently wondering what on earth a pig on a skateboard has to do with the Holiday Season, but that's a story for another post).

I'm a fan of an old-fashioned advent calendar myself, loving the nostalgia of the process.  Who doesn't enjoy the hunt for the right number hidden in an overly-crowded design, the subsequent battle with the inadequate perforations around each door, or the jolt of recognition as you discover a candy cane or a toy train pictured behind it?  (Both of which still seem to look the same as they did 45 years ago, which shouldn't be a shock, because how many ways are there to draw a wrapped present, after all?)  And let's not forget the joyful surprise of the inevitable discovery, a couple of hours later, that the glitter from the calendar has somehow transferred itself to your cheek.  Twelve year old me liked to pretend it was make-up.  I always have loved a bit of sparkle.

Consequently I've been fighting a rear-guard action against the inevitable march of chocolate advent calendars since the Boys were tiny.  Mainly this was down to my reluctance to give them a sugar rush before breakfast each day, (what's the point of making them eat Weetabix rather than sugared cereal if they've already been snacking on milk chocolate or, nowadays, Percy Pigs?).  But this year?  This year I couldn't be that cruel.  This year, after all, is 2020.  Normal service is currently suspended.

This, it turns out, is the year I finally caved and bought each of my sons a chocolate advent calendar.

I didn't tell them in advance, simply presenting them with their calendars when they came down for breakfast this morning.  Boy #1 - the junk food king - was delighted, and had ripped open the card and gobbled down the milk chocolate bunny behind Door 1 in 2 seconds flat. 

Boy #2, however, doesn't like milk chocolate.  Do you know how difficult it is to find a dark chocolate advent calendar at the end of November?  Or at least, how hard it is to find one that doesn't cost £40?  (I love him, but there are limits).  Nevertheless I managed it eventually, returning home in triumph with a 70 percenter for less than five quid, only to find - after he tried what lay behind his Door 1 this morning - that there is yet another brand of chocolate for us to add to the list of those to which he is allergic.

Oh well.  My intention is that my Husband will benefit from his younger son's misfortune.  But I'm home alone, and you know what they say; the road to hell and all that...

And you also know it's Christmas when...

... you find yourself eating a Bendicks chocolate mint at 10am because the friends who visited you at the weekend and brought it with them did not do their duty and finish off the box before they left.  Honestly.  Call yourself some of my best mates?

...after your previous post about having run out cinnamon, various friends and relations leave smug comments on your fb feed - or worse, leave links to recipes for cinnamon biscuits.  Oh yes, sis, I'm looking at you... (not a sponsored post, by the way).

Ha ha ha ha ha ha

(Gosh yes my sides are splitting...)

You know it's Christmas when...

... you find yourself in front of the herbs and spices at the supermarket and realise that the gaping hole under the letter 'C' is where the cinnamon used to live.  It's moved out now, gone into hiding, probably until February.  If you haven't bought your cinnamon by now, you're toast.  Although not the cinnamon-flavoured version, obviously.

...  the £5 pack of smoked salmon in the chiller cabinet seems like a good idea to add to your trolley.  Not that it features on any list, or in any meal you've planned in the next week or so, of course.  It's just that, well, smoked salmon.  Christmas.  Can't have one without the other, surely?

... whilst you're at the till on the same supermarket visit you accidentally knock a packet of gift tags shaped like stars off a display fixture onto the floor.  You pick it up - and buy 3 sets.  Now THAT's what I call product placement.

... on the way home from school, your older son makes a passing remark about needing £2 tomorrow for 'Christmas Mufty Day'.  With a sinking heart, you ask for more details.  "You know, Mum.  When you get to wear your own clothes instead of uniform.  Except that they need to be Christmas clothes."  Which Christmas clothes exactly is he thinking of, you ask.  "Ummm...  the ones you're going to sort out for me?"  By tomorrow, obviously.

...  on your subsequent dash to the shops you not only find the perfect Christmas jumper for your older son at an affordable price, but you see one that takes your younger son's fancy, too.  Closing your mind to the certain fact that by 11am on Christmas morning the jingle bells on the latter will be driving you insane, you buy both.  Because, well, it's Christmas, innit?

...

Christmas Shenanigans from Footballer's Knees.

I am blatantly stealing cred from my insanely talented sis, Footballer's Knees, again.  A quick recap; she lives in the UK with her husband Big A, and son J.

Here for your delectation is one of her latest fb missives...

Big A and I are playing the traditional game,'What's behind the Advent calendar door?' As usual, we are days behind, so have a week's worth to open.

'Number 5 - what's it going to be?' I ask, expectantly. 

Big A draws in a breath and sucks his teeth, in the manner of a brown coated hardware shopkeeper, thinking about whether he has 3 mil washers in stock. He's an aficionado of this game and takes it seriously. 'Well, it's early days, so we shouldn't be expecting angels or stars. I'm thinking camel, the ship of the desert...'

'....it's a star.'

Big A shakes his head. What is the world coming to, when a star makes such an early appearance in the game? 'OK then, if that's the way it's going to be, the next one will be an angel.'

Pause. 'It's two kittens, playing with a ball of wool.'

He shakes his head again. Time to play tough. 'In that case, it's definitely an angel next...'

'...it's a woman collecting water from a well.'

Big A stands and shouts. 'What the f@ck? What sort of sh*t is that?'

I cover my ears. 'Ssshh, don't swear in front of the Advent calendar. If you can't play nicely, we won't play at all.'

I hang up the calendar and exit the room, leaving him to untangle the Christmas tree lights alone.

On the Second Day of Advent...

... I went out foraging into the Dark and Scary Forest (aka 'Auchan', a supermarket that everyone here has their own beautiful horror story about) and wrestled the masses at the tills to bring home a Christmas tree.

Except, it's not a Real Tree.

For I have caved, dear reader.  After years of saying 'the real thing, or nothing' I have decided that 'nothing' is just too dreary for words.

Why 'nothing'?  Well, we leave Moscow for 3 weeks over the break, which makes getting a real tree not only impractical but - bearing in mind the Russian 'Christmas' is two weeks after ours, so live trees don't go on sale until just before we leave - inconvenient.  Plus, the fierce heating here destroys all living plants in the winter (at least, the ones that I come into contact with, anyway) and I can just imagine the effect that coming back to the remains of a dessicated tree would have on a family already battling with the post-Christmas blues.  It doesn't bear thinking about, really, so for the last 4 festive seasons we've been Christmas-tree-less.

No more, though; faced with yet another year of trying to make decorations dotted around the house look sparkly rather than sad, today I went out and bought a 150cm high monster (ahem) for Potski Mansions.

I had told the Boys that I would be buying a tree, along with the fact that it would be artificial, but of course that 2nd fact had gone in one ear and straight out the other.  Consequently, when they were presented with a frankly unimpressive box when they got home from school, questions where asked.

"But how did you get it home?"  from Boy #1.  In the car, I replied.  "What, the whole tree?"  "Well - yes.  That is the whole tree, in that box, there."

There was a moment of silence.

"What do you mean, exactly?  The whole tree - in that box?"  Boy #1 couldn't quite believe it.  "Um. Yes.  But don't worry - it will be much bigger once we've put it together."

Boy #2 stepped up.  He held up a hand, calling for calm.  Thank god someone was taking charge...  I watched him as the disbelief on his face began to transform into something else.  Could it be...

"Wait a minute.  Do you mean...  we get to build a tree?  Fantastic!  I'm going to the kitchen to get the scissors so we can unwrap it!"

Yes.  Delight.  That was it.  

He's not known as The Engineer for nothing.

I didn't get where I am today without knowing my own mind...

My grandmother is 98 years old. She is a feisty lady, who knows what she wants in life - as evidenced by this recent conversation with my mother during the run up to the festive season...

Nana: "Now. Your Christmas cake, this year..."

Note: My mother is a goddess in the kitchen. A goddess, I tell you; a living legend in all things culinary, and her Christmas cake is no exception. There is just one teeny little issue, and that is that - delicious, tasty and moist as her cake is - we (as in 'the family') are generally too stuffed by the time we reach the cake to do it full justice. As a result, over the last 20 or so years Mum has got into the habit of giving a good 1/3 to 1/2 of the cake to Nana to take home with her at the end of the Christmas break. And Nana, as we shall see, has got into the habit of taking it.

So, back to the conversation in hand.

Nana: "Now. Your Christmas cake, this year..."

Mum: "Yeesss..."

Nana: "You don't need to bother to ice it. I don't really like the icing. Too hard, and too sweet."

Mum: "But I always ice the cake. We all eat it, and we all like it iced."

Nana: "Well, you don't need to this year."

I suppose that you don't reach the age of 98 without learning how to speak your own mind. Or, indeed, without putting yourself first.

(Needless to say, Mum did ice the cake...

How do you know...

...when your child is living too secular a life?

I'm supposed to be a Roman Catholic. I have to admit though that, since living in Moscow, I have let my attendance at mass slide somewhat. It's not only because the nearest service in English is in the middle of town and conducted in a not particularly charismatic way; I also, like many Catholics I know, have 'issues' with various situations within the church recently, but I never planned that my concerns would impact on my sons being able to understand the faith they have been baptised into, or interfere with their making a fully informed choice for themselves on whether to embrace it or to look elsewhere in the future.

However, you can't drop your children into a foreign (literally) environment and expect them to absorb your religious education and beliefs by osmosis - as I am discovering. You have to work at it. And following a conversation I had with Boy #2 this weekend, I think I need to prioritise that.

We were discussing who in our family will have the next birthday. Boy #2 knew full well that his is the next birthday, but he just wanted further confirmation of that (when you're 5 going on 6, these things are important).

Me: "Well, yours is the next birthday, Boy #2."

Boy #2: "Yes, yes it is..."

Me (tongue in cheek): "Unless you count Jesus as being in our family, of course. If you do, then his is the next birthday."

Boy #2: "Is it? When?"

Me: "You know when it is! It's on December 25th."

Boy #2 gave a sharp intake of breath "Wow! That's amazing! Jesus's birthday is the same day as Christmas! How lucky is he?"

We got it sorted out, eventually. But I wonder how much actually went in, because the next day...

Boy #2: "You know how my birthday is quite close to Christmas?"

Me: "Yeeees."

Boy #2: "Well, if my birthday was on Christmas Day, and Jesus' birthday was on my birthday, then I would be God!"

Yep. Still a little work to do there, I think.

Things that make you go; hmmmm....

An acquaintance of mine was talking recently about how, having written his Christmas list at the end of September, her son announced last week that it was now out of date and he had changed everything on it. Everything. Which, if you are as poorly organised as I am, not doing your present shopping until a week before the big day, would be no biggie, but this lady is slightly better sorted than me.

So much better sorted, in fact, that the September list presents have already been purchased and are awaiting collection at various relatives houses.

You will be pleased to know, Reader, that I did not revel in this proof that my slightly haphazard approach to the Big C is a good thing. No sirree. Not in the slightest. But that was mainly because I was too busy trying to keep my face expression-free as she continued with the story to tell me how she was now frantically trying to buy everything on the new list.

I mean, surely a quiet word with her son about how Santa already put the order in with the elves for the previous list - or at least some of it - wouldn't have gone amiss? Just because they ask for it, should kids automatically get it?

I've already written - here - about my approach to presents for the Boys. (Basically, whatever they want as long it comes in lots of pieces that can be wrapped separately for maximum gift-wrap-rippage opportunities, and as long the total budget comes in at less than £70- £100). But how far would you go to accommodate your children's Christmas wishes?

Observations #102

It doesn't do to make too good a job of it when you are asked to write the minutes for a PTO meeting. Otherwise all future written communication will suddenly become your job...

Getting a group of lateral-thinking women together to plan a school event (like, for example, a Craft Fair) is all very well and you will end up with some very creative ideas. Just bear in mind that when you try to translate your notes to write up the minutes it may take some time to join up all the dots, what with all the jumping around from subject to subject that you will do during said creative discussions.

There will always be one woman who is as much concerned with the colour & design of the team t-shirt as she is with making sure the event runs smoothly.

The 'C' word is not a four letter one in the school my son attends. The 'C' word, never to be uttered in the school for fear of upsetting the authorities who have chosen to ignore it (along with, let it be said, all other religiously based festivals no matter what the faith), is 'Christmas'...

...Consequently I am planning on making a trip to the Christmas department in Selfridges on my next trip back to England to buy as much offensively festive kit as possible, and may even do the school run from end November onwards in a Santa Claus bobble hat.

Keep your head down and take a step backwards when your son's class teachers ask for helpers. Do not under any circumstances stand there waving your hand in the air, admit to having written some children's stories and then offer to read them to the class. Or you will find yourself nominated 'Writer in Residence' and in charge of steering the children's first creative writing lessons. (It's 'put your money where your pen is' time...)

That low key party you've planned for your son's 7th birthday? There ain't no such thing as a low key party for a 7 year old...

John Lewis; sheepskin-lined bovver boots and dresses worth die(t)ing for...

I'm not a natural shopper. It's a big effort for me to go out and spend on stuff that I don't need yesterday (other than on clothes for the Boys, where for some reason money trickles through my fingers like water...). I suspect this is based on some deep-seated subconscious memory of there not being a lot of cash to spare whilst growing up (credit cards? What were they?) and painful shopping trips with my mum, looking for clothes for me and where we had vastly differing expectations of the outcome...

I'm not one to hold a grudge, you understand, but to give you an example there was that time she had one idea about what I was going to wear to the 3rd year end of term party (involving taffeta and burgundy), and I had another (involving funky knickerbockers, high heeled boots and a tinsel-threaded scarf, with possibly a glittery band worn Adam Ant-style around my forehead). No need to say who won, I suspect - but I remember the slippery feel of that taffeta to this day...

One of the few shops that seems to escape this unconscious embargo however, and which I am happy to wander around in is Peter Jones, the John Lewis flagship store on the Kings Road. For some reason it seems to be one of the few places where I can almost always find what I need, so when JL offered bloggers the chance to get a preview of their Autumn/Winter Christmas range last Thursday I jumped at it.

Can I just say now that it's a good thing I'm spending most of my time in Russia at the moment? Otherwise I think most of my disposable income would be headed straight for the JL Partners pockets. In the kitchenware department I saw an ingenious soup maker that also blends and crushes ice (Cuisinart, £139), a bread maker that also bakes cakes and makes jam (John Lewis, £60), a cup-cake maker that resembles nothing so much as breville sandwich toaster in the way that it works, and a speaker system that streams from it's own console or alternatively from your i-phone, internet or for all I know, the kitchen sink (Sonos S5, £349).

Then the nice people giving the tour took us down to where the fashion buyers had assembled a limited range of the gorgeous numbers they'll be selling this winter, where I had dark and lustful thoughts about Barbours with English Eccentric linings, a Celia Birtwell dress that looked like it could stylishly disguise the evidence of any pre-Christmas mince-pie excess (£80), and any number of pieces in their Russian Military range (but especially the sheepskin lined Dr Martens which sound awful but aren't, and which would be PERFECT for the snow and ice of the school run in down-town Moscow in January...)

And that's not all. There was a new line by Mint Velvet, some gorgeous 'lounging about' lingerie (which of course has no place in my life but I can dream, can't I?), and lots of reasonably priced evening wear that would even be worth die(t)ing for. Not to mention the 'casual sparkle' pieces to spice up JL's Rebel Rebel themed line which should probably be worn by fresh-faced teenagers and 20-somethings, but which definitely will appear in the wardrobes of some 40+ ladies who should know better (myself included), and a pair of Henry Holland-designed JL tights which feature Big Ben as a motif. (I am a London girl at heart, after all).

And then - and then - they took us to the home-wares section where bloggers from across the land made plans to acquire an Allegra bedspread which was a thing of great beauty (at £60), various pieces of gorgeous Ercol furniture, and a skinny artificial Christmas tree to show-case some Nordic themed tree-decorations.

I would love to have some fantastic photos or footage of all this stuff, but whilst I didn't lie when I told the lovely ladies at reception that I do know how to use the Flip Mino camera they so kindly gave me on my arrival, it turns out - on viewing what I did film - that I'm not actually very good at recording anything worth seeing. Instead I've lifted this photo off it as the best I can offer, which whilst it isn't moving pictures is at least a good illustration of how easy it is to get high quality stills off the hd movies that the Flip takes. Sorry JL - I'm sure that's not at all what you had in mind when you handed it over...

Oh well; maybe by next year I'll have learnt how to use it. And look at the pretty colours!

Christmas snapshots

Snapshot *1

My parents are at the table, enjoying a post-dinner glass of wine.  Dad looks across at Mum as he opens the second bottle of the evening, and says:

"I think, when one of us dies, I'm going to have to give up drinking..."

Snapshot *2

I've spent the morning in and out of the snow with the Boys.  We have thrown snow-balls (well, not snow 'balls' per-se - since the snow is very un-Britishly too powdery and dry for that - more handfuls of the stuff scraped off the top of the garden table or up off the grass and which, to be honest, are far more effective than snow-balls at properly soaking your opponents), got freezing hands and noses, and generally revelled in the unexpected white pre-Christmas.  We are, frankly, snowed-up to the max.

After defrosting ourselves and drinking a warming cup of hot chocolate, I kit the Boys up again, ready to make a trip to the shops.  We walk to the door.  I open it, revealing the snowy scene outside again.  Boy *2, standing behind me, gasps.

Me:  "What is it, Boy *2?"

Boy *2:  "SNOW!!!"