It is interesting to me that my sister's cat only chooses to perform the bath/toilet nativity scene every other year. It seems clear to me that it supports my proposal to make Christmas a biennial (that's the word, folks!) festival. Spooky. If it's there in 2009 as well then I will take that as a sign from Jesus that he agrees with me. If it isn't there in 2009 I will take it as a test from Jesus, proving that I need to have faith in my beliefs, without direct evidence. The only way I will believe that Jesus wants Christmas to stay as an annual celebration will be if he appears in the bath and insists on me feeding him some water, which he then turns into wine. And spits in my face. Then and only then will I know that my beliefs are incorrect. The ball is in Jesus's court now.
Boxing Day passed without serious incident, though is the end of an era in the Herring household as it is the last time my mother is going to do the cooking at Christmas. The baton passes down to someone else and I tried to persuade my 16 year old niece to take over the duties, because if she could get it sorted out then that's the next 54 Christmases sorted out and I doubt I will bother coming after that. Mum has always done an amazing job with the various Christmas glutton-fests and I will thank her here, because it would be wrong to compliment her to her face. We don't want her getting big-headed. So at the time I just pulled a sour looking face and screwed up my nose as if to say her efforts were satisfactory, but no more. It is amazing that she has kept up the catering for this long.
My amazing grandma, Doris, is down in Cheddar this year. She's 96 years young - oh no, hang on that should be old, 96 is really old - and as I have mentioned before
sadly her short term memory has gone. She has no real idea who anyone is, aside from Ken (her 86 year old toyboy) and my mum and dad, but if anything she is better at hiding this than ever now. "Oooh, you're a face from the past," she will say or, "Now we go back a long way don't we?" (to which my brother replied, "Yes, nearly 50 years"). I wish she knew who I was still, but I love her, even if she no longer knows that she loves me and it's a pretty amazing thing to be at a table of adults, where the senior member is 80 years older than the youngest. Whilst my niece is staying in a house almost entirely full of pensioners, I think she still appreciates the fact that she gets to spend a little time with her great-grandmother, who was born before the Titanic sank. I asked Doris if she remembered the First World War, and she confidently replied that she did, though I suspect that she might be remembering the Second World War, which even my mum and dad can recall. In fact my dad boasted of remembering winning a slow bicycle race just before it ended, though I did question whether this was the thing that brought the conflict to a halt. Perhaps the world would be better if wars were decided on who could stay on their bicycle the longest without falling off, whilst covering the least amount of distance. The younger generation had no knowledge of slow bicycle races (which we definitely had at primary school). But my dad won one in 1945 and that's a good thing to remember. It also reminded me of my 8th birthday when I was playing cricket with some friends and my dad was the umpire. The first ball I faced I blasted over the heads of my tiny playmates, but my dad caught it and insisted I was out, even though he was the umpire and should not have suddenly become a fielder. Even then I knew this wasn't right. Clearly I have never forgiven him. I hope to one day emotionally torture and humiliate my own son, whilst also proving I am superior to him. This is what life is all about.
So Boxing Day lunch threw up a few memories for the people round the table and hopefully created some future memories for the newer generation (in 80 years time, perhaps my niece will be recalling her Great Grandma and Uncle to a host of as yet unborn ancestors - though when I suggested this to her she did predict that she would be telling them about how I had died a drug addict!), though alas, no short term memories for Doris. The rest of us will have to look after those for her.
