A Nice Cup of Tea & a Sit Down

Last week at work, and whilst eating lunch, my colleagues and I were discussing the moment each of us discovered that Father Christmas (or Santa Clause as he is more popularly known here) really didn't exist.   For me, Father Christmas ceased to exist on the 25th December 1959.   Unlike everyone else at the lunch table, the discovery had brought immense relief to me.

All the while that I was growing up, my parents convinced me that Father Christmas was a sort of Yuletide Robin Hood character.   According to them, during the night-time hours of Christmas Eve and Christmas day; Father Christmas traversed the globe.   His mission was to go into the houses of naughty children, take their Christmas presents and then redeliver them instead to children who had been very good during the course of the previous year.

Every Christmas Eve, I used to go to bed with the feeling of absolute dread.   I used to lie in bed fretting over the fact that at some point during the night, a villainous old man was going to break into my bedroom and unload all this hooky gear onto the end of my bed.  Thoughts of what if the police came and thought it was me who had stolen everything, flashed through my mind, along with all manner of other less than happy occurrences.   Usually however, I was sound asleep before the "burglary" occurred.   I remember that I used to wake up, look at the presents on the foot of my bed, and gave thanks to God that he had been and gone; and, that I was safe for yet another year.

Christmas Eve 1959 arrived.   Before going to bed, my parents insisted, as they always did, that I placed a mince pie and a small glass of sherry on the hearth for Father Christmas.   I remember thinking to myself that if Father Christmas had a glass of sherry at every house he visited, he would be well drunk by the time he got here.   It was then that a most terrible thought occurred to me; what if Father Christmas was so drunk when he got here, that he forgot that he was supposed to deliver gifts, and instead mistook me for a bad child and decided to take all the gifts away.   My parents had dressed me in pajamas that made me look like a Christmas present; what if he mistook me for a Christmas gift and took me away?   Worse, what if he decided to deliver me to some kids in India; how would I ever get home again?

I climbed into bed.   The thought struck me that if I took my pajamas off, at least I wouldn't look like a Christmas present and I might be spared an overnight trip to the Asian continent.   I lay there, naked, praying for sleep to come and rescue me from this awful predicament.   Sleep didn't come.   My stomach was churning; my heart was racing.   I prayed to God that I would fall asleep before this criminal slid down our chimney and came looking for me.   Time passed; still no sleep.   Then suddenly, my worst nightmare was realized.   I could hear someone turning the handle of my bedroom door.   He was here! 

The door opened, and I could hear someone breathing.   The breathing was getting closer and louder; it was him!   Father Christmas was at the end of my bed with all his stolen loot.   My heart started pounding.   I started to sweat profusely.   My breathing started to get more rapid and shallow.   I felt hot; I felt frightened.   I couldn't stand it any longer.   Suddenly, I sat bolt upright in bed, and screamed as loudly as I possibly could.   As I started to scream, I heard my dad scream.   The light went on, and for me, that was the end of the Father Christmas myth as I knew it.   By now, my father was muttering to my mother: "What the hell's the matter with him?   He nearly gave me a bloody heart attack; bleedin' kids…."   By now I was calming down.   How could my parents have been so cruel as to terrify the life out of me every Christmas Eve?   Maybe being relocated to India was not such a bad idea after all?

Like most people, Curtis and I have, each year, discussed the issue of a Christmas tree.   Curtis is a true traditionalist and insists that a tree isn't a tree unless it is real.   I have to admit, that whilst I like a real tree, the idea of buying a pre-lit tree is very appealing.   You take it out of the box, plug it in and hey presto, instant Christmas.   However, when it comes to decor, taste and styling; Curtis's view is usually the one that prevails.   One day, I will take a picture of a building near us and post it here.   I love the way they painted it and would happily paint this house in the same scheme. It is then you will appreciate why it is a good thing that in this particular realm, Curtis's ideas prevail.

In previous years, we have done the traditional thing and have driven off to the Christmas tree farm to pick out our seasonal guest.   We usually forgo the delight of riding in the haywain out to the field with dozens of noisome children, preferring instead to pick one that has already been cut and which is pretty much good to go.   Now there are drawbacks to this; how a tree looks in a field surrounded by other trees often does not resemble one's mind's eye view of how it will look back in your house.    One year, we brought home a modest tree which ended up being far taller than the height of our room, and was so wide, that we had to move half of our furniture into storage just so as to accommodate it and still allow us passage to the bedroom.

Last year also saw a change in our vehicular arrangements.   For many years, we had a Jeep with a roof rack.   Suddenly we found ourselves with smaller leased vehicles, without a roof rack.   Obviously, this presented a dilemma at Christmas tree buying time.   As a fervent believer of the ideal that every problem can be solved over the Internet, I discovered that I could get a Christmas tree shipped from Maine to Missouri via UPS and, it worked out cheaper than going to the local Christmas tree farm.   It was a terrific arrangement and, the tree that was delivered was the perfect shape.

This year, around about October, I got a letter from the Maine Christmas tree people, offering to do the same as the year before, at the same price.   It was a no-brainer.   I sent confirmation of the repeat order.   By return, they told me that the tree would arrive on 4th December.   A couple of months later, and on the day promised, our cute, blond, UPS guy, heaved the box containing the tree to our front door.

Curtis was off work today and before I left for the day, said that he would get the tree out of the box, cut off the end, and stand it in water and let it rest a while before we begin decorating it.   When I got home this evening, the tree was out of the box, but still in the garage.   Seemingly, cutting the end off was proving to be a challenge.   It was almost as if our tree had titanium instead of bark.   Two saws later and the end was finally off of the tree. Curtis heaved it into our lounge and meanwhile, I set about lighting our wood burning stove (yes, it is still frigid in Missouri).   No sooner had I set light to the kindling, than Curtis was calling from next door.   Seemingly, I needed to hold the tree straight whilst he did all this blokey stuff of tightening up bolts that keep the tree in place and upright.   Finally everything was set and I let go of the tree.   Everything was fine, until we decided that we needed to move the tree to the spot that it was going to spend Christmas.   It fell to one side, and so we had to go through the whole performance of lining it up and tightening the bolts even further.   Finally, the bolts were in place and the tree seemed to be able to stay upright unaided.

I went into our back parlour to look at our much neglected wood burner.   Fear shook me to the very core.   The stove pipe was glowing red - believe me, this is not a good thing.   I rushed and shut the stove down and prayed that our roof/chimney/house wouldn't catch fire.   I ran outside to check the chimney and thankfully, there were no flames coming out of it (this has not always been the case; we have had a chimney fire before).   Eventually, calm returned and we got on with things as we normally do.

Later than evening, Curtis stated that the tree looked as though it was beginning to relax as its branches were beginning to droop a bit.   We both agreed that a journey from Maine to Missouri in the back of a UPS truck whilst all the while being confined to a box, must be quite stressfull.   We were not surprised therefore, that the tree needed to rest a little before being decorated.  

That all said, there are odd things that turn me on in this world; and suddenly, the very notion of our UPS guy putting me in a box and driving me half-way across the continent in the back of his truck suddenly became erotically appealing.   Bizarre or not, at that very moment, I was envying a Christmas tree.   Am I odd, or is plain old vanilla sex that good, that no one even contemplates their inner self? 

Today, the weather in Missouri took a turn for the worst.   After weeks of balmy 72F temperatures, we suddenly plunged down to the late 20's.   We awoke this morning to ice rain.   Naturally, this was not unexpected.   The local weather forecasters and other harbingers of doom had predicted icy rain for Thursday and heavy snowfall for the Thursday/Friday overnight.

Our driveway is unusually steep, and so winter weather presents challenges.   This morning, we shoveled and salted and eventually,  my love-bunny was able to drive out to work.   (I am so dead when he reads this.)   Fortunately, I didn't have to go to work today, as work was canceled, and which meant I didn't need to leave the house.   I had already heeded the warnings and unlike some, instead of stocking up on milk and bread, I stocked up on ice-melt; bacon; eggs; beer; wine and gin (not necessarily in that order). 

The day was as predicted, relentless ice-rain, and for now, we are still awaiting the arrival of the snow. This evening I watched the local news program.   I tend not to watch local news because by and large, it has very little news content.   On any given night they read off the number of people murdered in St. Louis for that day, and pretty much, that is all we get to hear.   (Can you believe it, St. Louis has been named the most dangerous city in the U.S.?   Don't answer that because yes, you probably can.)   Anyway, today, no murders.   Instead, a solid hour of weather news.   I sat there thinking that we all know that the weather is bad.   They have already told us what to expect.   Why then are you going on and on about it for a whole hour?   Intriguingly, where's the other news?   You know, that boring stuff like a typhoon killing 146 people in the Philippines?   No, instead, we went "live" all over the viewing area to hear various reporters tell us that the weather is bad and snow is on the way.

OK, I suppose you have to forgive the local media for their news coverage.   The majority of people aren't really that interested in anything that goes on more than 50 miles from where they live.   Consequently, local media gauge their audience and give them what they perceive that they want.   However, in all this weather chaos, I find it incredulous at the amount of madness that seems to prevail.   Currently, the highway patrol are advising people not to travel unless their journey is absolutely vital.   Courtesy of the local news team, we had a live interview with some poor motorist stranded at a fuel stop.   The reporter asked him why he was out driving.   The driver responded that normally he would not attempt to drive in such treacherous conditions; however, tonight, he had an important high school basketball game to watch and that was why he was out on the road.   The reporter asked the valid question, given that all the schools were closed today, what made you think that a high school basketball game would be going ahead.   He sheepishly replied that as basketball was an indoor event, he assumed that it would go ahead as usual.

In our own small town, roads are currently, for the most part, impassable.   I am listening as I type to the emergency services on my scanner.   About an hour ago, the ambulance people were dispatched to a rural address to deal with someone complaining of a stomach ache; a stomach ache that he has had since yesterday morning.   Yesterday morning, evening and night, the roads were clear, the weather was fine.   He could have gone to see his GP.   He could have got a relative to drive you to the emergency room.   But no, he waited until the roads are impassable, and then calls the ambulance, which in turn, has to wait for MODOT to plow in front of them so that they can reach the address.   I know one cannot help being ill, but please, don't wait until the middle of the night to have people address something that has been manifest for 36 hours.

Hot on the heels of this, the police receive a call from someone reporting that a suspicious car has driven into the driveway of the house opposite.   The address is at the top of a steep hill.   The police have to wait for the city road crew to plow the road before they can respond.   They arrive, and find that the suspicious vehicle belongs to the owner of the house, who arrived home later than usual owing to the weather.   OK, it is really nice to have vigilant neighbors.  However, the reality in this case is that the neighbor saw what she thought to be a suspicious vehicle.   She then watched her neighbor get out of the vehicle, go to the front door of his house, unlock it with his key, and go inside.   It is only then, that she got on the phone to the police and told them only the first part of the story.

If this wasn't enough drama for one evening, 15 minutes later, one of the city road crews calls in to say that they have fallen off of the side of the road and that they are stuck.   They ask for the other crew to come and tow them out; and, as they hadn't bothered to put on the snow chains before they left, could that crew also bring their snow chains!