Christmas Eve

10:11AM.

Having woken up at stupid o'clock in the morning (05:50), despite having gone to bed at 03:00, I managed to get dressed fairly quickly, made a nice cup of coffee, got all my stuff together and we set off out, happily driving and chatting, to my sister's house to pick her and my nephew (the little superstar of christmas) up.

After an uneventful journey, we get to the house, and my nephew climbs into the car to sit in his childseat next to me. So I'm there drinking my coffee while he's brought a bag of melon with him, which he excitedly eats, as we get belted in and prepare to go off to the local supermarket. Our local supermarket is kinda special - it used to be an old cavalry (i think?) barracks, so it's one of the few supermarkets I think you'll find, that's got turrets and towers and stuff. Kinda cool.

Unfortunatley, the little fella drops a circle of melon into the depths of the passenger footwell, so setting my coffee down on the center console (the car was stationary at the time) I lean down to try and find it for him.
To make things worse though, my sister has the same idea, and as she reaches across the car to try and find it, she expertly knocks my cup (it was one of those thermos ones with the lid - I'm not mad enough to try to drink coffee out of a normal household cup in a moving vehicle) into the footwell. Trying not to ruin the fact that we got off to a good start, I keep quiet, though I can hear the coffee glugging into the footwell carpet.
I discreetly retreive the cup, noting that the footwell carpet now squelches, and that my (fairly large) cup has now lost about a quarter of its contents inside the car.

Not to worry though, as we're nearly there. We finally arrive, to find a deserted store, all shuttered and closed up, with only a handful of expectant people waiting outside. After a short period of boredom, my sister take my nephew and I to the inclined travelator that leads up to the smaller stores and businesses further up the hill. We (my sister and I) used to run up and down this as kids, and we used to love it.

To the delight of everyone concerned, my nephew loved riding up and down and up and down the travelator - he thought it was great. I suppose it was one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it was great just watching him step off at the bottom/top and shouting "again!" and so back on we went!

Eventually, time comes for us to grab our trolleys/shopping carts, and join the now substantial queue outside the entrance. Just like something off Ratrace, the bell in the clock tower goes, and like a great machine starting up, this huge crowd moves as one, slowly into the store.

The next 10/15 minutes or so were nuts, the place was absolutely jam packed. To get to a shelf you had to wait for at least one other person to move out of your way. I found myself barricaded up against a shelf and handing stuff over to people that couldn't reach. Okay, so I only had to hand stuff to one person, but it still counts I spose.

We were there for the next three hours, during which time my mum and dad split off into one group, and my nephew, my sister and I formed another. We had a bit of a random moment when my nephew became moody and uncooperative, because his mother wanted to buy him "Cars" on DVD. Random of him!

My parents very kindly bought me a little christmas pressie to keep me going through this festive time, in fact hang on, I'll go and take a photo...

Very nice of them I thought, and not a bad deal at all. £16 for 36 cans :). Anyway, we went round, the place had quietened down quite a lot, and so time eventually came for us to check out, which we did. But not before our boz-eyed (crooked/bent or otherwise "not-straight") trolley more or less drove itself into a flower display, knocking a bucket of water all over the floor...
I check out as well, I've got my own stuff to buy, though I cunningly notice that some items I'd forgotten that I'd taken off the shelves (honestly!) had slipped unnoticed into my parent's shopping and were therefore picked up on their tab, not mine.

We managed to go to the in-store cafe, where I ended up eating a fairly burnt sausage sandwich, while my nephew got a bowl of melon and a teacake thing.

We've just got home, the journey back was uneventful, though there were dangerous undertones of frayed tempers, unspoken threats and the ever present icy cool of our family's christmastime interactions. I can't help but feel that this christmas might go the same way that last one did, and end up being ruined by family arguments again. I can't help but worry that my dad, always my dad, won't know when to wind his f****** neck in and just shut the hell up instead of trying to have the last say and the authoritive opinion on everything...

Oh well, here's hoping. Hope all goes well. It's 10:40 now, I'm gonna get changed, gonna stash my beer, and I'm gonna grab another couple of hours sleep. Take care all, hope you're having a decent Xmas eve.



16:36PM.

Okay, I had my microsleep, and after settling down, actually managed to grab a few hours before I was woken by the distinctive sound of my brother laughing at something. Great, it's about time we had some Christmas Spirit in the house, so I go downstairs to find out what all the fuss is about.
There's some random christmas themed appalingly generic tv show on, which everyone is apparently engrossed in, despite the fact that it looks thoroughly crap. Anyway, my bro is nice enough to have brought me a christmas card, which made me grin, and I'll add it to my collection of christmas cards, asap.

My dad on the other hand, randomly tells me that apparently I owe my mum some money. Welcome to my family folks, even at Christmas, it all comes down to £££, and my parents are experts at calculating the cost of other members of the family, right down to the last penny. Not even a huge amount, £16, which I take to be for my beer.
if I'd have known I was paying for it I would have got twice as much.

Anyway, I get tired again incredibly quickly, rush back upstairs, hop into bed again, and before I know it, I'm waking up again to find that my mum is now baking, my system monitor/control panel in the front of my computer has gone doolally (made in China I spose), and that with less than 15 minutes to go until Father Christmas's visit (for those of you that haven't read my earlier blogs, a guy dressed as father christmas comes round on a sleigh pulled by a pickup truck, and gives chocolate and stuff to the local kids), my nephew and sister are nowhere to be seen.
Worrying, as my ickle nephew has been very excited about seeing Father Christmas again. It adds a little bit of magic to his Christmas.
Oh well, I definitley hope they turn up soon!

I'm off to eat my fantastic Beef Jerky, and wait for them to arrive. Ten minutes to Father Christmas's visit, there are already queues outside, AAAANNNNDDD...

with Nine minutes to go, my sister and my nephew have turned up!

Right, off to go and take part in another christmas tradition!
See you soon folks!




17:29PM.

Right, father christmas actually arrived early. No sooner had we stepped out into the piddling rain than father christmas came round the corner in all his glory. Fantastic sleigh covered in christmas lights, christmas music playing, and him waving to everyone. The look on my nephew's face was great, his eyes absolutely wide with excitement.

When you get to my age (god that made me sound old) Christmas loses a lot of its magic, particularly when characters like my dad are involved. In our family in particular, the festive spirit is not only dampened with age, but also by the knowledge that the slightest disagreement in the company of my dad can turn, very quickly, into a full blown christmas row like the one that tore last christmas apart, the first time I lost my temper at the christmas table, the first time I saw my dad speechless.

But I suppose I digress. The past is there to learn from, not to dwell upon, so with the above in mind, it was absolutely great to see the sparkle in my nephew's eyes as this very real christmas magic washed over him. Not only was it amazing for him, but for me, it was like I had regained if only for a short time, some of the magic.

We chatted and queued in the rain for a while, everyone happy, getting along, not really getting that wet, and my nephew got round to seeing father christmas, and got not only a photo, courtesy of me, but a chocolate bar from father christmas. We sat and waved them off, and walked back to our house.

I'm gonna chill out for a bit now, I spose. My mum is doing the christmas baking, I've got some presents to wrap later, but for the moment, there's nothing to do but wait.
I hope your christmas eve is continuing to be a good one, I've got a good feeling about our christmas this year :).

22:56PM.

Okay, so I've just been sat chilling out for the past few hours. Been pretty busy as it happens, my desk fell to bits again - it's been doing that a lot recently. So out come the rools; a big hammer, some wood filler, some rawlplugs, a big bag of screws, and lots of extra swearwords, and listening to Armake21's "games that suck" reviews, I happily went on my way. Eventually, I managed to get the desk sorted, so yay, go me!
I say that firmly tongue in cheek, obviously.

I've had some of my mum's baking - her quiches are fantastic. I've also had the opportunity to tidy my room up a bit which is good. My bedclothes are in the wash too so when I have my shower before going to bed, I'll be able to come straight out of the shower into a nice very clean and warm bed.

I've got a couple of presents to wrap before I go to bed, too, I think I'll do them now.

Talk later!