I love Christmas – wrapping the presents; the ritual of decorating the tree, a process which in our house usually extends to smothering the entire ground floor of the house with garlands and glitter; collecting the turkey from the farm; making the stuffing, the pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce and all the other essential elements of our family Christmas dinner; setting the table with bits and pieces of inherited and precious silver and glassware (I don’t much enjoy polishing these but hey, they usually only come out once a year); the sound of car doors slamming as the extended family arrives and piles into the house with luggage and presents and wine and boxes of crackers and hugs all round; the laughter and jokes, the inevitable is-the-turkey-underdone-or-overdone moment, and the after dinner tradition of charades around the table, which only one of the family is actually any good at (take a bow, Alice). Continue reading →