ALEXANDRA SHULMAN'S NOTEBOOK: We all had a jolly time - but it wasn't Christmas
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So Christmas Day is over with all traditions swept back into the box, stored until next year. Not the tree decorations and cards, which remain for as long as possible (albeit with a faintly superstitious feeling about Twelfth Night), but all the activity surrounding the day.
If, like me, you have achieved an almost unchanged Christmas ritual for 66 years, you are either a) unadventurous to a staggering degree; b) a soppy nostalgic fortunate to be indulged in your whims by those around you; or c) too scared to discover whether you’d enjoy something else.
What would happen if we threw caution to the wind and flew to the Caribbean to have a picnic on white sands? Or spend the day, in pyjamas, with a jeroboam of champagne, a tub of caviar and old movies? The world wouldn’t stop turning, of that much I’m sure, but such is my love for Christmas tradition that I’m too apprehensive to find out.
From the piling of gifts under the tree on Christmas Eve to the tangerine at the bottom of the stocking, to (my personal favourite) the silence of the London streets on Christmas morning – this is the day as I know and love it. But this year, for a variety of reasons, I had to give in to a change of plan.
All the above were still in place but instead of cooking a huge feast at home for extended family and friends, we went to a restaurant – just my son, his father and my boyfriend. Absent was the fridge stuffed with cheese and brandy butter, the brined huge turkey à la Nigella soaking in a bucket in the garden shed, bowls of chopped and pared carrots, parsnips, red cabbage, and the Christmas Eve peeling of potatoes. Instead, I was slumped on the sofa watching Funny Girl and King’s College carols on TV.