happy christmas

Happy Christmas, one and all.  We have made it.  The Systems Administrator, although still nursing a cold and a sore throat, rallied sufficiently to cook and eat lunch, a small free range Duchy organic chicken (that was the only free range chicken Waitrose had last Thursday that was good until December 25th, most of the space that would normally contain free range chicken being given over to turkeys) and all the trimmings, and last year's Christmas pudding.  Gifts have been exchanged.  Christmas music has been listened to.  None of the kitties have gone missing or broken anything.  Mr Fluffy had a go at tobogganing on the tablecloth and rampaging among the cards, but that was before I'd laid the table, and Mr Fidget sat quietly on a chair all through lunch without trying to jump up.  By dusk I was starting to feel a little plaintive that I hadn't seen Mr Cool since breakfast time, but when I went down to shut the conservatory door there he was, dozing quietly out of the wind.  Our Ginger has been omnipresent, with the air of a cat that knows a party is going on that he hasn't been invited to fully join in with.  My mother emailed.  My Japanese gardening friend emailed and my card to her arrived in time.

It is a relief.  The ritual has been accomplished, and there is enough cold food to last for days without our having to do much cooking.  One of us will have to venture out tomorrow because the SA is running out of cold remedies and I have been eking out the cat biscuits since Friday.  I feel rather bad at having bought such monstrous quantities of food for us and forgotten to get more biscuits for the cats.  We have a good stock of tins but they don't want tinned food, they want biscuits.

The chickens spoofed me into fetching them an extra helping of sultanas because it was Christmas day and they looked so hopeful when I went past to bring in more firewood.  I gave the Systems Administrator a pair of Danish felt house shoes, AKA slippers, in an entirely non-ironic way because I have found mine so warm and light and comfortable.  The SA admits they are all of those things.

It doesn't sound very much like the Perfect Christmas that the papers have been banging on about since around mid November, but compared to last year it was a triumph.