A Christmas Ritual

and my Christmas Disco Record of the Week

Photo by Carina Maria on Unsplash

First of all, I’m utterly delighted to welcome so many new subscribers. All of you brought to me via Substack goddess India Knight who so very kindly mentioned my review of her book HOME last week. Imagine my utter amazement when I opened her Weekend Supplement to find I was featured. Yes ok it was for a review of her book, but so what.

I had planned to make this week’s post a small little diddy one, featuring not much more than my Christmas Disco Record of the Week. I had said in a previous post that I was feeling impossibly stuck in Christmas prep denial and there is still an element of that in this household. I’m generally still just corralling my lists and now find myself in the territory of paying express delivery charges which always galls me, but it’s my fault, so I’ll just have to suck it up. It is of course a busy ole time for most of us, well, let’s face it, a busy time for women. I heard a statistic on Woman’s Hour where research from HomeSense declared that 93% of women buy the presents and 89% do the wrapping, so no surprise many of us are running on fumes at the moment. However our tree is up – hoorah and having achieved at least that, I thought I’d scribe a little piece (if you’ve got time to read it!) on the joy of rituals and traditions at Christmas. I think every household has their own; they’re developed over the years and I think it’s these, often quirky customs, that bring a warm feeling of togetherness and comfort that can make this time of year feel so special .

One of the rituals my husband and I have developed over the years is the way we festoon our Christmas tree. It’s not terribly individual; as with most folk, we head off to a local nursery and pull out various trees. A LOT of trees are examined. We are a little restricted in height as we have a low ceiling where our Yuletide tree resides. We are also seeking a tree with sufficient gapping between the layers of branches to enable baubles to be seen properly, i.e. not to end up resting on the branch beneath them. Credit to my husband for this criterion, it took a while to convince me, but it works. The selected tree is brought home and plunged into an old granite trough we have, that at this time of year is always full of water. There it sits for a few days, ideally a week and with an inch chopped off the trunk prior, to help water absorption (we always mean to do this but often fail).

On the designated day of Christmas tree installation, usually a Sunday, depending on when Christmas Day lands, we bring it in for festooning. We put it in its stand (add water to stand receptacle) and push the tree into position. Christmas music (a ye olde CD) is put on and then the tree lights are arranged, followed but the unboxing of our fairy (who I simply adore) she is placed, of course, atop the tree. Then the bauble/ornament unwrap commences. I am a bit anal in that I individually re-wrap all our baubles in tissue paper and store them in a box. Every year I sit with the box at my feet and unwrap as my husband takes them from me and puts them on the tree. Yes, dear reader, I do often do some pertinent rearranging of the bauble placement. Does he know I do this? I expect so. I love the unwrap process and like to do a ‘when, where and who’ commentary on how each tree decoration came into our lives and the memories attached; some are gifts from friends or bought at a particular Christmas fair attended with a friend, or have some other significance.

Our beautiful fairy - moody photograph, quite by accident, the weather is so dark and gloomy at the moment.

As the tree decorations are hung on the branches we sing along to Phil Spector ‘My Christmas Gift to You’ and if it’s taking a while, Elvis ‘Christmas Peace’ as well (always glad of some peace a this time of year). When this task is completed. I then tie red ribbons to the end of random branches and our tree is now dressed and ready for presents to be placed underneath. We stand back, admire it, sigh with satisfaction and head off for a cuppa and a mince pie with clotted cream (I am married to a Cornishman, the cream is compulsory). Are you still with me? Apologies if I’ve crossed your boredom threshold.

I am also aware that I have painted quite the picture of blissful Christmas harmony here. The divine contentment of the loving couple, all smiles and nostalgia, ‘Frosty the Snowman’ playing in the background, but inevitably on occasions there is an element of tension. When there is an epic light fail, or the fully baubled tree has suddenly developed a lean.

This year the tree had not been left to stand after being taken out of the water, nor was it given any thing as rudimentary as a little shake. It is my job to crawl beneath it to tighten up the screws in the tree stand which hold the trunk in place; it was like lying beneath a rain cloud and I ended up with very wet hair not helped by the resulting laughter when I emerged with a slick of duckweed (from the granite trough) stuck to my face. I caught a look at myself in the mirror and my mood was lightened, I did look hilarious. However, when the tree was then pushed into position and the lights put on, it led to a ‘discussion’ as to whether we normally put the lights on before putting the tree in position or afterwards. Then a realisation that we hadn’t remembered to put any Christmas music on. This was soon rectified, but while ‘A Christmas Gift For You’ from Phil Spector was ringing around our home, I tried not to think too deeply about the fact that Mr Spector was a cruel, wife beating, murdering bastard; it’s not a comfortable feeling but what do we do? I found myself singing along with The Ronettes and it didn’t feel wrong.

Just before the bauble box was opened and the unwrap commenced we noticed the tree was leaning. A re-tightening of the screws beneath was required, under it I went but I didn’t have the strength in my thumbs to fully tighten it, so husband got involved, pliers were requested, delivered, and gladly a straight tree was the outcome. At last we were ready for the bauble unwrap; this restored me, it was as lovely as it always is.

Christmas Kitchen Disco Record of the Week

JD McPherson - Twinkle little Christmas Lights

I love JD McPherson and wanted to pick a Christmas song that was under the radar, a little of bit of a rock ‘n’ roll Christmas, so here you go.

I plan to take a couple of weeks off from Substack as I feel the need for a re-boot. One of those switch everything off, leave it for a bit and switch it back on again re-boots. A software update would be good too, not sure how I get one of those, but I plan to give my home and my mind a bit of a de-clutter session. So this will be my last post for a couple of weeks or so. I hope to rejoin you replenished, refreshed and optimistic and in the meantime I wish you all a jolly festive season.

Thank you so much for reading and if you have the will, a little click on the ❤️ button would be gratefully received.