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The Herring family seem a little obsessed with catching up on missed Christmas dinners. We had a joint Christmas and Easter meal at Easter so my nephew could catch up on the Yuletide that he had missed on his world travels and today, with the return of another globe-trotting nephew we had another Christmas lunch. Maybe we should just have turkey and crackers when more than six of us are together all at once. I feel in the future we may be confused when we see pictures of a clearly five month old Phoebe wearing a paper hat from a cracker.
Despite being born in February this is her second Christmas dinner, but the first time she got to sit at the table as we had a little travel bolster seat with us that could strap where to one of the dining room chairs. Phoebe, of course, loved being the centre of attention (I don’t know where she gets that from), laughing and making us laugh and then laughing more. She is almost irrepressibly happy. It’s almost heart-breaking, but it’s mainly just glorious. We took a photo of all the cousins who were present (Phoebe is the youngest grand-child by 24 years, which prompted my nephew Andy to remember at school finding it weird that some kids had had cousins who were fifty or sixty, then realising that he would be one of these weird older cousins). Phoebe was besotted with my eldest nephew Michael. We wanted a photo of them all, but she was just staring up at him with adoration. She didn’t seem interested in anyone else and weird older cousin Andrew wasn’t getting a second look. Every time we distracted her she’d look away for a second and then look back at him again. She’s got great comic timing. And an eye for a handsome man. Andrew, everyone would agree is not a good-looking man. There’s one in every family. Though thinking about it my brother and sister are both good looking, so it must have skipped our generation.
The cousins seem particularly enamoured with Phoebe and I love it that they’re already so close and that she has realised that Andrew is weird, but I think it must be lovely for my mum and dad to have another afterthought grandchild (though dad was dropping not very subtle hints about wanting to be a great-grandad).
We drove home in the mid-afternoon though traffic was a bit against us and we had to wake Phoebe up when I needed a coffee to keep myself awake. We passed the last hour listening to songs from Sesame Street, which Catie and me probably enjoyed more than our daughter. We both really love the charming Elmo’s song, which is funny and silly (and a bit overplayed by the showboating Snuffy who should just let the song speak for itself), but just like my innocent daughter I found its simple joy and lack of guile slightly heart-breaking. When they’re singing in harmony there’s something so joyous about it, three child-like friends enjoying being alive with no understanding of any of the shittiness of life (and it’s very big of Elmo just to share his song in the first place, because it’s all about happiness and not commercial success), it makes the whole thing bitter sweet. That tiny little puppet and that big yellow bird and that weird elephant thing have no idea that there’s anything awful beyond Sesame Street. And they never will realise this. They’ve stayed in that bubble for decades (at least Elmo and Big Bird. I don’t know when Snuffy turned up, certainly not while I was watching and I don’t like him - there I’ve said it). But my daughter will realise. It’s the death of her innocence that is the unspoken Snuffleopolis in the room whilst that harmonising is going on. It destroys me.
But try and get that song out of your head.
