Yesterday we took down the tree and put away the decorations and the crib after the children had gone to bed. It struck me that this was a sorry contrast to the gleeful decorating before Christmas. All the preparations are family affairs but the dismantling of the Christmas paraphernalia is done by parents and Christmas sneaks off like a thief in the night. And then, the next year it is re-discovered when the boxes come down from the attic. Like magic.
Family
Belated Happy New Year
“What news from the Waffle Christmas?” I hear you ask anxiously. You have been consulting this website daily in hopes of an update. And, then again, perhaps not.
Well, Michael spent Christmas morning in tears as he got nothing he liked from Santa. He went to a lot of trouble to write a list including items such as a “sleep bomb” and a “spy plane” and, of course, “an x-box” but he didn’t get any of them. Great was his wrath. Alas. On the plus side, his brother and sister were quite pleased with their gifts.
On St. Stephen’s Day, we went orienteering in the Dublin mountains. This turned out to be a poor choice for reasons which are, I think, abundantly clear from the photographs below.
On the 27th we went to Cork where the boys got an X-box. We didn’t see them for the remainder of our time in Cork as they spent it on the couch wielding virtual light sabres.
We returned to Dublin on December 30 with the two boys and the x-box. Herself stayed in Cork for a couple of days bonding with her Cork relatives.
I went into the office on December 31 and the place was like a morgue. I cannot believe how much work I got done. I was delighted with myself. Mr. Waffle said that I was on a bureaucratic high when he dragged me out at 6.15. Very kind friends had a new year’s eve dinner party where we stayed until nearly 4 in the morning (and we were the first to leave). Mr. Waffle drove to his parents’ house to collect the two boys in the morning and I was able to sleep in. I still had to go to bed at 9 the next two nights. I am, frankly, not as resilient as I once was.
As a reward for reading this far, may I refer you to a rather more entertaining tale of Christmas celebrations from a monastery? The whole world is on the internet, really.
Have you any good new year resolutions? I have none. I feel that I can never successfully top my January 2011 resolution so have given up. That’s the spirit, I think you’ll agree.
Ready
Mr. Waffle has taken the children out and I am sitting at home alone. I have finished the paper. There are carols on the stereo. The cat is sleeping on the rug. The Christmas tree lights are lit. Night is falling [which means that they will all be back soon because the park in the dark is no good; indeed have just received text message – ‘Park went well. In pub eating crisps. Home soon.’ All the news as it happens, that’s this blog]. All our preparations are complete. We have been so busy over the past couple of weeks and it is lovely that all is peaceful and quiet. Later all will be business and excitement laying out food and stockings for Santa; the Christmas carol service [slight nervousness]; washing children in preparation for Christmas morning; and shooing them back to bed as they venture downstairs to double check that all is in readiness.
Happy Christmas.
All I Want for Christmas…Seasonal Round Up
Daniel is down a front tooth…
And in other news, did I tell you that Saint Nicolas came on December 6 – Dublin is somewhat outside his remit of the Low Countries but he came all the same.
We went to see Santa at the Botanic Gardens on Sunday. On the plus side it was free and the children got an African violet and a gummy snake each. On the minus side, it was freezing and the queue lasted for 90 minutes.
Mr. Waffle is in Helsinki all week. He was obsessively checking the weather before he left and packed his ski gear and a pair of long johns for the expected Arctic cold. It turns out that it’s not as cold as he expected (but, you know, snowy, dark and -3). I am home alone with the children and it is now gone 10 and Michael continues to trek down the stairs at regular intervals to inform me of activities upstairs. In fact, I think I hear him now. Sigh.
Not a Complete Loss
We went for a walk in the Dublin mountains at the weekend. It was too cold and the children were cranky. Michael managed to give himself a heavy nosebleed by hitting himself hard on the head with a long stick (also ruining the photograph below).
On the way home, Mr. Waffle dropped me and the boys in town to pick up new shoes for them. By complete co-incidence on the way home we passed the lighting ceremony for a Christmas tree. Attractions included the count down to lighting the tree (mercifully brief), the Lord Mayor, a choir, free hot chocolate and a free merry-go-round. This was populated in part by bused in middle class children wearing mustard hats and pink tights and swaddled in red coats and their anxious parents and in part by entirely unaccompanied local children in track suits having a terrific time on the merry-go-round and milling through the hot chocolate like there was no tomorrow. All surprisingly pleasant though bitterly cold. I think that we may say that the Christmas season has begun.
Mr. and Mrs. Didactic Take Their Children to Town
On Sunday morning, we went to see “Ernest et Célestine”:
It was lovely. However, the IFI, in it’s wisdom not only had subtitles but had the sound slightly lowered and someone reading out the subtitles in English. I found this approach deeply unsatisfactory. Looking around the cinema, it seemed to me that the vast majority of the young patrons were either francophone or able to read. While it was undoubtedly a good approach for the small minority who were unable to read or speak French, it ruined it for everyone else. It’s actually surprisingly hard to concentrate on a film when it is in French with English subtitles which are read aloud.
In the row behind us there was a woman with her 11 grandchildren. With great fanfare each of them received sweets of some kind. One grandchild was sent to the Spar to get extra bottles of water to carry them through the 90 minutes of the film. Our lot, seeing the largesse being distributed at great length in the row behind asked whether they were going to get anything. “No, it’s 11 in the morning,” I said tartly. To be fair to them, they accepted this despite the ongoing distribution of bounty in the row behind for the duration of the film. Bah, humbug, I know.
After lunch in Milano’s – the excitement – we went off to see the launch of Bliain na Gaeilge. This was something of a damp squib. A cold nasty rain was raining and the Irish dancers and traditional musicians were huddled under a small awning. A number of young people were speaking Irish enthusiastically and the children spoke Irish for long enough to get the following: their faces painted and a balloon, notebook, pen and highlighter each. They were touchingly delighted by their haul of free goodies. We decided not to wait to see the Lord Mayor and battled driving wind and cold rain back to the car. Honestly, the children love it really.