Christmas Past

It's almost 2 years to the day that I last posted on this blog, in response to the news of the death of Captain Beefheart. In turn, that inspired my most prolific blog - a Historic Gig Guide, but it feels time to go back to this one. Maybe it's because I go to see less live music in the winter months, but I also consider and write about other subjects - I just haven't been sharing them in a blog. So Christmas is a time for reconnecting and reflecting. There are many ways to spend Christmas and I have had more than my fair share. In the tropics with my parents, back in the late 60s, we sweltered in equatorial heat as we recreated a traditional Christmas dinner in a house on stilts. In the early 70s I took home an unsuitable older boyfriend who wore a kaftan and a greatcoat through the Christmas meal. He did take off his hippy hat though. By the mid 70s I was married and I started many years of a two centre Christmas, travelling across the Pennines between my parents in Sheffield, and my in laws in Chester. Sometimes I was ill, coming down with the seasonal Christmas cold, and we would stay over. Other times we made a late journey home, fingers crossed that the old Ford Capri, Morris Traveller or Velocette motorbike, whatever the vehicle of the year was, would make it home. Late 70s and I was divorced. My boyfriend was Dutch and we celebrated St Nicholas on December 6th, leaving our shoes out for Saint Nick, his white horse and Black Peter. 1980 came and I was teaching English in Casablanca. My flat mate and I took off to the Canaries for Christmas. We were offered the use a town centre apartment in Santa Cruz de Tenerife by one of her former colleagues. Somewhere along the way, perhaps at the airport in Las Palmas, or on the ferry from Gran Canaria to Tenerife we met up with an American teacher. He joined us and organised a quick trip round the market, purchasing the last available chicken on Christmas Eve. We went to Midnight Mass in a beautiful Spanish cathedral. We drank absinthe cocktails in lively bars. We spent Christmas Day on a nudist beach, just outside the main port. The plump German tourists, slick with sun tan oil and breaded by sand, reminded us to go home and put the chicken on. Marriage and children followed, and once more I found myself travelling back and forth across the Pennines between parents and in laws. This time the car was a reliable Subaru estate. Sometimes the dog was carsick, and the children were home sick. Occasionally their roles reversed. Christmas only comes but once a year, and if I put my thinking cap on I can remember something of each one. Over recent years, and especially since I have been single, a lovely informality has developed, as my children gather round the kitchen table for our now traditional vegetarian Christmas dinner. Except it’s not quite as informal as I imagine. My easy going Christmas has become a tradition they cling to and expect! I still have an unfulfilled ambition for Christmas Day, inspired by a teenage friend who was the daughter of a Bishop in Manchester. As a family they spent Christmas Day serving dinners in the Salvation Army Hostel, and I fully intend to do something similar one Christmas Day soon.