Christmas Musings

Good news, everybody ! The days are starting to get longer, OK , I know we’ve still got the really cold months to come but this salutary fact always lifts my spirits and serves to remind me of the true meaning of Christmas, that the long nights are finally getting shorter.

Talking of Christmas, have you done all your shopping yet ? Mrs Gojam is just buying the last item, a skirt for her grandmother, as I write, I’m making myself a rather disgusting breakfast, the smoke alarm has already gone off once. Mrs Gojam was beavering away online doing our Christmas shopping at the end of November and her successful endeavours only left the usual suspects to buy presents for. I expect we’ve all got a ‘difficult’ customer on our Xmas present list, for us it’s my father Mr Gojam snr.

He’s not Rockefeller but he’s got enough to buy whatever it is he needs or wants himself, he doesn’t drink and he has no hobbies and past experience has taught me that there is no point in buying a present that might introduce him to a hobby. He does have a bit of a sweet tooth but he put the kabosh on any notion of going down that route when he told me last week that he was cutting back for health reasons. “Look Dad”, I finally asked. “What is it that you want for Christmas?” He thought for a short while before saying what he says every year, that there is nothing he needs or wants. “Listen Dad, I’m pretty sure Jesus wouldn’t be so inconsiderate, I’m sure he would make something up even if he didn’t want or need it and make his son’s life a little more guilt free.”

“But there is nothing I want, son.”

“Listen, you’re going to get something, now it’s your choice. I can wrap up some piece of crap that you almost certainly don’t want and you’ll have to look happy as you open it, or you can tell me which piece of crap you don’t really want and I can wrap that up.”

“Well, maybe I could have socks, you can’t have too many pairs of socks.”

I left it at that, he’ll get some socks and other crap he doesn’t want, though I instinctively hold that you can indeed have too many socks, I just haven’t thought of the reason why yet. I wouldn’t mind so much but he is always so generous at Christmas and he is absolutely terrible at pretending as he unwraps his gift, that the gift is something that he wanted.

Yet, this is something I’ve pretty much perfected. The worst Christmas present I’ve ever received was an ironing board cover from my mother-in-law, now sadly deceased. Now, you try looking happy about receiving that! I’m still, many years later, excavating the new layers of irony and sarcasm that prompted her to conceive the notion that this is what she’d give me, and yet I still convincingly looked happy (the surprise was genuine).

Anyway, Mrs Gojam asked me to make sure that the washing up was done before she got back. Whereas many wives are aspirational, I’m lucky in that mine always communicates her minimum requirements to me clearly, her eyes convey the dire consequences of not clearing such a low bar. So, I’d better do that now.

Take care.