Michael: Christmas is Jesus’s birthday.
Me: Yes, that’s right.
Michael begins to cry.
Me: What’s wrong?
Michael: That means Jesus gets all the presents.
Me: No, no, the baby Jesus loves us all so much that he wants all the children to have presents.
Princess: And Santa delivers the presents with help from his brother Saint Nicolas and his sister the Befana.
Boys
Call the tabloids
Me: Does anybody know who Barack Obama is?
Her: Yes, let me think, yes, he is the President of the United States.
Me: Very good.
Daniel: I’ve seen him.
Me: Really?
Daniel: Yes.
Me: Where?
Daniel: Outside my window.
Me: Oh yes?
Daniel: Oh yes, and he was naked.
And here’s a nice link for those who love Dr. Seuss.
And for the cat owners with children, keep the children away from the hole punch or your cat may end up like this.
Christmas Cheer
We went up to Farmleigh this afternoon. It was restored for the nation by the office of public works and is open to the public when very important guests are not staying there. It was bought from the Guinnesses for €29.2 million (ah, that property boom again) and it is a, not very attractive, piece of high Victoriana, in my view. I can’t help feeling that there are many other buildings the nation might have been better off spending its money on.
Nevertheless, as our politicians are fond of saying at the moment “we are where we are”. There are markets in the courtyard and events all year round. I have been consistently disappointed in the Farmleigh offering but the fact that so many other people regularly have a great time there keeps drawing me back. Today, wasn’t too bad. The courtyard was chilly and cheerless and the Santa unconvincing but the house was warm and manned by people in 19th century gear (I am a sucker for costume – I nearly died of happiness in Upper Canada Village). In the ballroom, there was a big Christmas tree and a choir were singing beautifully. All around were people like us with small children, spellbound. Children were sitting on their parents knees, rocking back and forth – their little faces all aglow from the cold weather outside. When the choir stopped singing, you could have heard a pin drop. Two childish voices piped up into the silence:
Childish voice 1: This is boring.
Childish voice 2: Yeah, this is boring, I want to go somewhere I can spend my money.
No prizes for guessing whose children these might be.
Injury
Daniel came down to breakfast claiming that he had a sore foot. I didn’t believe him. We carried him all morning and brought him into school. Amazingly, the heartless muinteoir was actually quite sympathetic. I thought he was malingering. Mid-morning, Mr. Waffle got a call from the school – Daniel’s foot is still sore. The teacher said he wasn’t complaining but she felt he was quite genuine. Poor Daniel. The next day, he was fine. Growing pains?
Eeek!
My children do not enjoy as diverse a diet as I did when I was their age. In part this is because I am not at all as good a cook as my mother and in part because they are the pickiest eaters in Ireland.
I am spending a couple of days with my parents (photos of flooding may follow, hold your breath) and this evening my mother cooked prawns for the offspring. It was then that I realised that they had never even had a frozen prawn before, let alone one still encased in its shell. They gazed in horrified fascination at the little bodies laid out for their delectation. They winced as I screwed off the thorax and pulled out the edible part. The Princess then began to create new bodies using the heads and pincers. The boys were too afraid to even touch them. So, your best guess, did they eat any dinner tonight?
A new twist to a classic tale
Princess: What’s “The King and I” about?
Mr. Waffle: A woman goes to Siam (explanation that this is now Thailand, eye-rolling in the back of the car from herself) to be governess to the king’s daughter.
Me (feeling that this is an important plot point): And the King’s wife, the Princess’s mother, is dead.
Daniel: I don’t want my Mummy to die.
Me: Mummies almost never die. Don’t worry. It’s very unusual.
Princess (impatiently): What happens?
Me: They fall in love.
Her: The king’s daughter and the governess?