Just seven months to Christmas! That's only 211 days! Almost time to start getting ready!You think I jest? Well, the young couple at the next table to us in a restaurant the other evening were doing exactly that. For more than an hour, they plotted and planned their family Christmas with the desperate feverishness of those scarred by previous seasonal get-togethers.
There was much talk about the days on which the various family members would arrive and where they would be accommodated (a futon in the sitting room, an inflatable bed in the study) and detailed plots involving enticements and compromises: “We’ll get Mother to make one of her special potato-salads...”
Their increasing anxiety was disturbingly infectious and it was difficult to resist the temptation to try and make helpful suggestions such as: “Do you really think that making the potato salad is going to compensate for the fact that your mother won’t be cooking the turkey and Christmas pud this year?”
When we left they had reached the point of discussing how they were going to “sell” the plan to the various family members and who needed to be won over first…
What we knew, and what they were closing their minds to, is the fact that, however relation-proof they imagine their scheme to be, it will without doubt go horrendously wrong - somewhere between 24th and 26th December…
1 comment:
I blame the restaurant for being so greedy as to place the tables that close together that we are forced to share such intimate conversations as this, against our will!
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