The Queen’s Christmas Message
On my kitchen bench is an old chipped green enamel colander, a relic from a grandmother’s kitchen. It is filled with redcurrants, also inherited, from the previous owners of Lush Places. I will stew the berries with sugar, sieve them and turn them into redcurrant jelly.
I will pot this jelly into jars and give them to people for Christmas presents. I will also make spiced Christmas biscuits with cloves and cardamom, and ginger chocolate trufffles.
I like the smell of Christmas. I like to give people the smell of Christmas; things they might like to eat. Giving homemade gifts is a way of showing off, of course. Do feel free to give me things I like to eat. Unless you are a crap cook. In which case do feel free to send me posh chocs.
Giving people things in jars is also a way to clear out your cupboards of those chutneys and relishes and jams you made last year. Were you ever going to eat them? No. So do give them to other people for Christmas. It makes you look virtuous and thrifty and like the Domestic Goddess you really are not.
Do give me Christmas presents, homemade preferably. I have a child-like belief in the magic of Christmas presents. This is despite, as a child, having crept out in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, unwrapping my presents and experiencing crestfallen disappointment, re-wrapping them and waking up on Christmas Day to pretend not to be experiencing crestfallen disappointment. Still, I believe in expectation.
Christmas is about expectations wrapped up in pretty wrapping paper and ribbons. I like wrapping up presents. Do wrap your presents enticingly. I am considering giving my cousin a gift-wrapping course for her Christmas present. The running gag in our family, which may have been started by me, is that her presents look as though they have been wrapped by a drunk 5-year-old.
Do buy people gifts you know they will love. I may have bought the King a pair of very superior pillowslips. They will be beautifully wrapped.
The King’s Christmas Message
I should wish you all a Merry Christmas. But I won’t. Wishing people Merry Christmas is No 1 on my list of Christmas season “Don’ts”. At this time of the year, there’s enough fake bonhomie about without me wishing people Merry Christmas willy-nilly. So, you see, I can’t wish you a Merry Christmas. Sorry about that.
On second thoughts, wishing people Merry Christmas is not No 1 on the list, it is No 2. My No 1 is don’t do Christmas at all – though this is not an option at Lush Places because the Queen just loves Christmas.
If Christmas has to be endured – and my suspicion is that I am far from alone in having that feeling – then it is important to have a firm idea of what you won’t tolerate at Yuletide.
Like crap presents. Third on my list of don’ts is, “Don’t let the Queen buy my Christmas presents”. To ensure satisfaction, always buy your own gifts and get others to wrap them and give them to you. That way, you will be guaranteed, as I am this year, to receive, say, a secondhand boxset of Father Ted for Christmas, and not be given something the Queen thinks we need for the house, like new pillowslips.
Fourth on the list is, “Don’t accept invitations to go to someone else’s place on Christmas Day”. If you have to endure Christmas, make sure to endure it in close proximity to the fridge, the telly, your new, old Father Ted boxset and a bottle of Bushmills.
Fifth, and final, on Scrooge McDixon’s list is, “Don’t complain about Christmas out loud, just mutter about it under your breath”. That way, despite being a sad and joyless person at Christmas, you won’t ruin it for everyone else.
To paraphrase the late, great American comedian George Burns, the secret to a successful Christmas is to sincerely enjoy it. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
