Archive | November 2011

Bahhh Humbug!!!

Nov23

I feel like taking the plug off the TV and hibernating – it’s only November but already the ‘Christmas’ channels are up and running on the TV and have been for a couple of weeks now.  We have already had the ‘Coca Cola’ advert, weeks before it’s due.  Toys and CDs galore are on every ad break… Has the country gone mad??

I’m not being at all Scroogle-like, I just think that the pressure to consume is hitting us way to hard and way, way too early this year.  Everyone has less money to spend so I realise that retailers are trying to get your money before you spend it elsewhere, but I ask you – who has the money anyway?  Surely I am not the only person who feels like this?  I am avoiding the town because at every breath there are more posters and banners leering at me, wanting me to spend, spend, spend.

I’m also aghast at the number of households already sporting a generous cladding of festive lighting – their fuel bills are going to be amazing enough if we get the cold weather we have been promised, without them lighting up the neighbourhood for two months too!

Now, I’m not religious so the festival holds no religious meaning for me.  What it does mean is a time when most of my family are not at work; it’s a time when we can indulge in one another’s company.  We can give one another small gifts to show our love and our appreciation for that person (note I said small).  It’s a time for feasting, but not so much that we can’t afford to eat for the rest of the year.  Most of all, it’s a time for rest and recharging our batteries as a family.  Its a few days off work, hunker down under a blanket and do not very much at all.

This year is going to feel very strange for me.  Of our seven children, only four will be at home on Christmas Day for the first time ever.  Our family is growing up.  No.1 Son will be at work – he works in a call centre and will be there to assist those motorists foolhardy enough to go out in their cars and break down on Christmas day.  I don’t blame him, like the rest of the population; the money will come in handy for him.  No.1 Daughter now has a little family of her own, and although I will be sad not to have her at our table this year, I am full of pride that she has her wonderful partner and their little man to cook her first Christmas dinner for this year.  Number 3 no longer lives at home and will, I expect be with friends for the holidays.  Our table will be less crowded this year, and although I am a little sad, I am also strangely looking forward to some relaxing time with our younger kids and Dear Hubby.

I hope that each and every one of you has a wondrous festival holiday, filled with love, respect and relaxation.  I do hope though, that those who are unable to consume at the levels the ad men would like us to, will feel comfortable in not indulging the excesses that others are.

I’m off now to carry on knitting gifts for our nearest and dearest.  I have been beavering away all year making wines to gift too, so if you receive a long narrow package from us… guess what – have a MERRY holiday!

Where I am from…

Nov2

I am from the chimes from the village church clock, from gravy on chips and beef-dripping on toast.
I am from the farm hand’s tied cottage, always moving from farm to farm.
I am from the wheat fields, the hay bales and stacks which were the playgrounds of my early years.
I am from the love of food and from ample backsides, from Granny Massingham and Granny Pell and generations of wise women.
I am from a world where our elders are our lifeline as well as the line of our life. I’m from where respect was given in equal measure with love.
From ‘It’s not what you said, it’s the way you said it’ and ‘Do as you would be done by’ and ‘Because I said so!’.
I am from living with the seasons and understanding their power, from scrumping crab apples and getting tummy ache.

I’m from the bike tyres stuffed with pages of the Sun when Granddad couldn’t find a new inner-tube, and the typewriter in the back yard that we used to play with in summer.
I’m from Gardeners and Bee-keepers, Railway-men and Bakers, Cattle-men, teenage mums, soldiers and Gypsies.
I am from artists who never knew their worth and story-tellers who never wrote things down. I’m from the sound of songs sung like lullabies, no matter what the words.
I’m from brothers, six, and a sister, long-awaited. I’m from much that overrides the fears and the traumas.
I’m from Aunties and Uncles, cousins aplenty, grandparents whose word was law, yet who we loved more than life.
I’m from the love of a man, whose love I can never hope to live up to, though I return it spades and try for all I’m worth.
I’m from all that life has dealt me, good, bad and ugly.

This is based on a poem by George Ella Lyon.  A template for you to have a try too can be found here.

I first saw an adaptation here, and am very grateful for the idea.