Is It Just Me? (24 page)

Oh yes, we find ways to manage the situation and embrace the madness. The fact is, Little M, you’re still at the age where you’re assuming that everyone else is having normal, fun-fuelled easy family Christmases, and it’s only your family that’s bonkers. But you’ll eventually realise that all families are basically the same. Everyone’s got their version of The Mother and Great Aunty June, and everyone experiences moments of thinking that their family is made up of the most annoying people ever to have walked the earth. Up and down the nation people are shouting at their parents for calling remote controls ‘doobries’, or being shouted at for accidentally bathing the sprouts in Armagnac. Once you accept this, you can really, truly grow to love family time at Christmas.

The main thing, I find, is that you forget. You forget how mad-making it really is. You noodle through the year thinking, ‘Oh, yes, Christmas, that’ll be a jolly nice and simple few days off work.’ Then the first of October rolls round, the first bit of Slade whistles into your ears, and . . . you’re off. You’ve all gone crackers.

Still, we wouldn’t be without it, would we? At thirty-eight we’re embracing it more than ever. Now, excuse me, I must go and get the 16’ inflatable Christmas-pudding-shaped bauble out of the car.

Oh no, we turn into The Mother. I KNEW it . . .

Now, MDRC, I suggest that wherever and whenever you are reading this book: sun lounger on the beach in August, tucked up in bed in February, your friend’s backyard in the middle of a blazing May day – you join me in a rousing carol.
^*
takes deep breath, plunges in
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‘Gloo-o-oo-or-ooh, GLOR-oh-oh-oh, GLOR-oh-oh-or-or –’ No, started too high again . . .
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goes down an octave
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‘Gloor-oo-or-oooh . . .’ That’s better.

Merry Christmas, one and all.

Well, I am stuffed. I am stuffed and bloated and replete with literary mince pies (and also actual mince pies: my mouth started watering during that last chapter and I found some of last year’s in the back of the cupboard. Mmm, lovely chewy stale pastry). So, methinks, it’s time for another Pit Stop. Please replenish beverages, sashay into the kitchen and make yourself a sachet-based hot chocolate. Or even – and here’s a thought – a sachet-based soup. (Everyone says it’s a meal, but I think we all know it’s not really, don’t we? It’s a
drink
. A freeze-dried, sachet-based meal? Absurd. What are we, astronauts?)

I hope you’re still very much with me, MDRC, jollying along by my side. If so, please put your hands in the air – wherever you may be – and offer me a hearty ‘Yes, I am.’ Done that? Good. Is everybody looking at you? Extra good. I’m all for healthy public affirmations of one’s existence, which is what passing strangers would have assumed you’d just felt the urge to do.

So, we have jollied along through the thorny topics of Health, Holidays and Christmas, and now that Mr Mug is happily full of whatever beverage you’ve selected, let’s gambol through our next round of tick-boxing. Please tick, with immense pride, the
triangles
below (triangles make it even more fun, don’t you think?), if you’ve found yourself doing any of the following:

If you’ve achieved one or more of these things, please give yourself a high five (which is actually probably just clapping, when you think about it). Very important to celebrate victories, however tiny, I always say.

And now, to ‘Task Time’. Have you told yourself you’re beautiful yet? To be honest, I haven’t quite managed it. I say it, then burst into fits of giggles and have to draw a moustache on my face with a Magic Marker. Perhaps we’ll all have better luck with our third and penultimate task: