Wishing it could be Christmas every day

How very odd. Our uneventful and largely unfestive Christmas Day turned out to be a Very Lovely Day Indeed.

It really was a tremendously ordinary sort of day. All the animal-related tasks got done in the usual way at the usual times, and in between Life Went On. But the very fact that it was a supposedly special sort of day seemed to make a difference.

To be fair, there were a few things that actually were a little out of the ordinary. We each had an enormous mince pie with our customary mid-morning coffee (which Simon had rustled up the night before, using a dusty, past-its-use-by-date jar of Tesco mincmeat that has been languishing at the back of the kitchen shelves for three years, and some individual-quiche baking trays).

We had (organic) beef stew for our Christmas dinner (and not the festive nut-roast of vegetarian yore), although Simon couldn’t be arsed with roast potatoes, and only realised when he was dishing up that he had forgotten all about the sprouts (which are still sitting patiently in the fridge, all dressed up with nowhere to go). This sacriligious omission may have been related to the fact that we had uncustomarily downed a bottle of celebratory Crémant de Bourgogne during the early part of the day.

Then, when all the washing up was done, and the chickens had been locked up safe for the night, and the dogs had tired themselves out on their last rompful walk-and-play of the chilly day, and I had surprised Simon with the unexpected and unwrapped present of a new pair of Debenhams slippers (which were too small), he chucked another yule-sized log on the fire, and we settled down to watch the long-awaited first two episodes of Season Four of the most excellent Breaking Bad (whilst consuming uncustomary chocolate almonds, cherry liqueurs and dates).

But, on reflection, I think the most different thing about the day was the awareness we brought to it. We paid attention to each other, and to where we were, and to what we were doing (with the notable exception of the sprouts!). We focussed on what was happening Right Now, and somehow noticed the surprising pleasantness of The Present (which wasn’t too small at all).

And I have uncustomarily decided to make a New Year’s Resolution – to do my best to let 2012 be Christmas Every Day.

This entry was posted in Life. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Wishing it could be Christmas every day

  1. A Mind Filled With Tumbleweed says:

    You could write a song about that

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.