Merry Christmas! War continues.
So I was there for Christmas dinner with my family, which is surely the most important thing. They're not a bad lot really, despite my cracks at them and it was nice to have this Festive occasion with them, because next year after "You Can Choose Your Friends" has been broadcast, none of them will ever talk to me again. Luckily their crazy antics provided me with plenty more fodder to save me for many series to come!
The best moment was when my mum went out to get the Christmas pudding. Usually she makes a pudding months in advance, though one year the family home was burgled and one of the thieves decided to take a bite out of the pudding he had found in a wardrobe. That's how good a cook my mum is. Even the most evil of men can't resist her wares.
This year, however, my niece Sarah had bought a posh pudding for dinner at some big food fayre in Olympia. We were discussing this as mum went out to the kitchen to prepare desserts and as tradition dictates to set the Christmas pudding on fire.
Sarah's pudding was being bigged up at the table, just as, to great comic value there was a terrible shriek from the kitchen. My mum shrieks at pretty much any eventuality and so this shriek could mean that she had dropped a fork or was herself on fire, and though my first thought was, "I hope mum is OK", my second was "I suspect something has gone awry with the fancy Olympia pud!"
Shriek one was followed by Shriek two and a cry of "Keith, help!"
Keith, my dad, now as soaked in alcohol as the richest Christmas pudding did not move, but other family members rushed out to save my helpless mum.
Luckily she was fine, but it transpired that the pudding had had a bit too much alchol on it and had flared up once lit and set fire to some napkins. Then in her shock my mum had dropped the precious pudding on the floor. Of course, once it was established there was no singed grandma in the kitchen we all laughed heartily at the fate of this much anticipated treat. Mum came in minutes later with a bit of a squashed looking pudding. Half of it was fine, but half of it was in crumbs. I asked if I could have a non-floor bit, but mum insisted that what was left was fine. Usually you get a sixpence in your pudding rather than some dust and hairballs, but it's Christmas so I didn't make a fuss.
It was funny. No-one got hurt and the pudding was a victim of its own hubristic publicity and as long as Mum was OK, nobody cared about the pud. It's not as if we weren't already crammed full of food.
As if that wasn't enough when Dad was making the coffee he managed to spill the whole cafetiere over the floor and his new jumper. This wasn't really as funny, partly because I had to clear the mess up, but also because he slightly burnt his hand. But it wasn't too bad an injury and it meant the old man got to go and sit down whilst me and my eldest nephew got on with clearing up.
But it's good to know that my family manage to come up with this knockabout comedy without even trying, making my job a lot easier. Even though the family in the drama are in no way my own family. Any similarity between the clumsy grandfather and my own dad is entirely coincidental.
