Christmas eve was Christmas: turkey, sprouts, two kinds of gravy (one vegetarian the other not), three kinds of stuffing (sausage, apricot and walnut for the carnivores, sage and onion for the vegetarian and a third kind for the person who is allergic to wheat). It was lots of candles and lots of mead and then it was presents and finally Tom's home made Christmas log that was suitable for vegetarians and the wheat-intolerant, but was so sweet that no one could eat it.
The night ended watching Dumb and Dumber followed by Father Ted.
Today- Boxing day- was day three of the turkey.
A second day of turkey sandwiches, Christmas cake, port and pickles.
No visiting of the In-Laws for us this year, I don't know if I feel bad about that or not?
Instead we were outside almost all of today, burning branches, and cutting back trees and shrubs (which isn't the same thing as pruning- one needs to know what one is doing to call it that!).
We also dug a pit.
I thought that an Aubrey hole would be perfect...for the turkey, and for the detritus of living a garden accumulates: the bits of broken glass, the plate shards and Super-Soaker, there was a shoe, grill pan from a cooker. The hole was dug, the turkey corpse was laid to rest surrounded by glass and other things. The hole filled in and if I ask myself was that not harder than just driving the whole load of stuff to the municipal waste disposal dump? the answer is yes, but not as much fun.
Mostly I thought how inefficient spades and forks are for hole digging and wished that I had an antler pick and an ox scapular.
But back to Sunday...
Christmas had happened the day before.
I drove my daughters to their dad's house- somewhere across the way from the Blue Remembered Hills and up a narrow road where they would do Christmas again.
I then turned around and came home.
So for me, Christmas day was the extra day: the day that has no name, or rules or assignments or meanings.
I liked that very much.
