Question Time

In which our reluctant hero gets his excuses in early.

Last minute Christmas shopping. Last minute food shopping. Pub. Wrapping. Re-wrapping. Writing labels. Building a flat pack ice cream shop. Dismantling and re-mantling a flat pack ice cream shop after realising that the sides were on the wrong way. Lugging presents downstairs for Father Christmas. Peeling veg on Christmas Eve. Up before the “Sun’s up up in my room, Daddy!” every morning. Overexcited little people. Opening presents. Trying to work out who sent the previously opened presents. Tidying up the mess. Boiling sprouts to within an inch of their existence. Basting the turkey. Serving Christmas dinner. Serving Christmas dinner to the cats. Pulling crackers at every meal or snack time. Rediscovering the terrible joke in our homemade cracker. Setting fire to the pudding. Putting out hat that was a bit too close to the pudding. Washing up. Eating a wheelbarrow’s worth of Celebrations by coffee time. Bedtime meltdowns. Bedtime meltdowns by the kids too. Tidying up the mess. Again. Trip to the tip. Almost chucking the youngest’s buggy in the skips (oops.) Etc.

Christmas. Marvellous isn’t it?

I’ll forgive you for mistaking the above for a thirty second Groundhog Day-esque summary of Christmas Eve to Boxing Day. Close. It is in fact a rather hastily list of excuses as to why I haven’t written, or even thought about writing, a proper post this week. Which is odd as the Christmas period is often seen as a time for quiet thought and contemplation. Its Christmas. With kids. Fat chance.

Although not contemplated quietly, some deep, interesting, and theological (probably) questions did occasionally pop into my head over the period. A fleeting in and out, like Santa on a speed date. Questions such as (in no particular order);

• Why are over fifty screws, nuts and bolts needed to build a child’s ice cream shop?
• Where have I put the allen key this time?
• When is “Escape to Victory” on?
• How do you store Lego and Duplo in between builds?
• How did two grown-ups end up spending all afternoon building the Lego?
• Why do sprouts taste as bitter as a pint of bitter lemon on a chilly night on Christmas Day, but amazing when fried up as breakfast bubble ‘n’ squeak on Boxing Day?
• Can our recycling pile be seen from space by a naked eye?
• Working on the basis that everybody who wants to/has to watch Frozen has seen it more than five hundred times already, couldn’t the BBC have given us parents JUST ONE DAY OFF?!
• Where did all of the salted peanuts go?
• How do you make the Rapunzel Doll stop singing? In Spanish?
• What on earth is a Shopkin?
• Is the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special a new one?
• What on earth have the boffins at Cadbury done to the Roses wrappers?
• Why is “Mrs Brown’s Boys” still allowed on the electric television? (Presumably Brendan O’Carroll knows where the bodies are buried.)
• How do you make the Frozen Doll stop singing? In Spanish?
• Next year, will it be easier to arrange for my December wages to be paid directly into Amazon’s bank account?
• Why are the children upstairs playing hospitals when there’s about half of Amazon’s UK stock sat in the living room?
• Why wasn’t “Escape to Victory” on?
• Is “re-mantling” even a word?

So there you go. Will I ever get answers to these questions? Probably not. Will I be asking exactly the same things next year. Probably. Ho, ho, ho.

Fin.