Christmas Eve, 2009

Let me be a child again, and today I'm doing this: Watching lots of TV (including a version of Cinderella). In the morning, my father cuts the top off one of the trees in the garden, and once it's put up, we decorate it with the same stuff as every year, including ornaments we children made (that's now been used around 25-30 years). There is now new 'themed' tree decor every year, it's the same always and it's good to see our old friend in its new incarnation. Of course, while we decorate, there's more TV. In the early afternoon, there's potato salad and frankfurters: yuck - but later there'll be lots of sweets so I'll be (more than) compensated. We are eventually banned from the living room. it gets dark, and there's a Christmas walk that sometimes takes us (without our father) to a church, but more often just through the neighbourhood. There's not much decoration on the outside of houses or in gardens, but we try to peep into the houses to see other people's trees. When we're back at home, Father Christmas has been, and our dad has let him in, entertained him and supervised the laying out of presents under the tree. Before we are allowed into the living room, we gather round the piano (mum palys) and sing some songs, or listen to a reading of the nativity story. Then, my mum will sneak into the living room - the tree is lit and its light shines through the tainted glass doors - ring a little bell, and we are finally allowed in and sing "Ihr Kinderlein Kommet". Sometimes we are asked too recite a poem, one by one, to contribute to the festivities and celebrations. The presents lie under the tree in little heaps, a heap for each, wrapped in different paper each, recycled from the year before and the one before and the one before. The table is full of special plates full of sweets, biscuits and citrus fruit, a plate for each. The room is dark - dark furniture, dark wooden walls, and lit by only the tree and maybe another small desk lamp. The light is special, cosy and promising. My mother shows us which heap is for whom, and then the presents are ours.
This is the Christmas I wish for tonight.

My childhood tree, 2009 - as so many years before

"Bunte Teller" (Two or three too few because we're not there)

But we live in England, and things are different here. Tara has been brought up to the English plot. She's learnt from Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas that Santa is on his way on the 24th, and delivers the presents at night, to be found in the morning. Nursery has her convinced that she must spend the whole night in her own bed, or else Santa will not leave any presents if he doesn't find her in - bit cruel really, and I've already spent ages telling her not to worry, we would make arrangements in case she is to be found in mummy's bed (as every night, without exception, from ca 10pm on). So, when in England...
It's the first Christmas we celebrate on our own turf, and we've put in some thinking as to how we'd like it. Mum and dad agree: as close to the German Christmas and Holywood (that's Jose's influence, due to a somewhat different Spanish celebrations) as we can, within the English plotline. I've had a look at suggestions of traditions on the internet, and chosen a few to adopt. It doesn't matter that it's researched and adopted - they will become authentic in their own good time. So we:

• Bake cakes with the intention of giving them to the neighbours as gifts. Although, by the time I've found fairy Tara (in a festive outfit of her own choice) has poked her slobbery fingers into the pink icing of half of them, I'm deciding that that part of the 'tradition' can just as well be added the next time round.

Who says festive cupcakes have to be red and green?

• We undertake one last shopping trip to get our offerings for Santa and his reindeer. Every member of the family gets to choose one item, so if Santa is tired of mince pies and too full in general, we get to eat some lovely things in the morning - obviously an adapted take on my family's plates of sweets, the famous, above mentioned Bunte Teller. Tara chooses - marshmallows. They are pink, and green. You can't eve say they're unorthodox as we are only starting the tradition this year!
• I want to bring the TV into our day, and Jose downloads a film (paid for! legally!) he feels is appropriate for all the family, then disappears into the kitchen "for only five minutes" to make dinner, and leaves us to it. The film goes like this: Divorced mother drops little son off at father's place for Christmas, parents fight, child is unhappy. Tara is puzzled. "Why are they shouting? Why is the mummy going away? Why is the girl sad?" (Boy has long hair.) There is a sound on the roof, father goes out to check and scares Santa, who falls off the roof and lies like dead. Tara is shocked. Next cut, Santa has dissolved. Tara is even more shocked. Conveniently, Santa has left his baggy clothes, a ladder to the roof, and sleigh and reindeer on the roof. Little boy and father get into sleigh. Tara cries. "I don't want she to get in there!" We abandon the film and comfort a traumatised Tara imstead. What kind of choice was that, Daddy! What were you thinking, Hollywood! Next year it'll be Cinderella, and I'm getting the film. Luckily there's another programme point to be actioned:
• Since we have no accessible chimneys - and Tara is hysterically worried about Santa trying to get onto our roof to come down one as of ten minutes ago - we lay a path of reindeer food through our garden, oats mixed with glitter (the internet promised the oats would blow away, which of course does not happen, and by mid-January we still have soggy oats and glitter everywhere), for them to follow from our gate to our back door. I nearly forget, so by the time we sprinkle them all over it's a bit late and I have to attach a headlight to my head (hand full!) to see what we're doing. Still. Tara is impressed. And relieved. And talks about Santa falling off roofs and coming through doors for the next week. Now, mustn't forget to leave a special key out for Santa... Leo sleeps through this, although there's a chance he would have liked the sight of his mother shining white light from her head.
  

Fairy Tara, flapping her wings and looking a bit of a hippie, takes carrots (must feed those reindeer well!), a drink of orange juice (riding a sleigh under the influence of alcohol? Not in our garden!), and a big plate full of marshmallows and cookies into the living room and places them under the tree. The table is still too full of stuff, and we hope that if we save Santa the trip through the chimney he'll manage to bend down for his snack.
And that's it. Tara flapps off to bed, Leo is asleep on mummy anyway.

'Tis done! Off to bed!

Hang on, Mummy, says Leo, what are you thinking dumping me in bed to go back down to watch a film with dad and nibble carrots (marshmallows and cookies)! I want boobies, I want cuddles, I NEED company in this big old lonely bed!

Don't go, Mummy!

It's been a bit of an exhausting day, and I fall asleep with Leo. This means I leave the field to Jose who, I think, convinced Father Christmas that marshmallows are bad for his reindeer. Father Chrustmas in turn convinces daddy that they are bad for his daughter and best returned to the cupboard, and that stockings are best left next to the tree so the big presents can spill over and sit under the tree. It's just lucky though that Jose made it through bedtime awake, or else Father Chritmas wouldn't have made it in - we've forgotten the special magic key to our back door! In fact, we HAVE NO special magic key to our back door!

...And our next entry will reveal if Jose managed to keep Tara away from the stockings and the tree until he, and he alone, decided it was a good enough time to get up and enter the living room, all as a family, as they do in Wunstorf and Hollywood... or do they?