Friday, 25 December 2015

Christmas, again

Merry Christmas! I'm going to make like this is a Christmas special edition. I really should have made it a thing before as Christmas more any other time is an occasion where the food becomes imbued all its associations and the story around it so would fit well within the theme of this blog. It may seem somewhat curious that Christmas is an especially significant time for me and my family on account of not even doing it properly. But, it makes perfect sense when you consider that no one has a choice but to spend lots of time with family and reflect on your relationship with them and the place you grew up and home and all of those other wrought, nostalgic concepts that you can't ignore in favour of friends or Instagram because everyone else is busy being obliged to do the same. Unsurprising, again, that Christmas here has been the scene of the biggest dramas to take place in my sweet twenty four and a half years. Now we're (cough, I) all more grown up and calm and boring, it's an anniversary for worse times past and we all get a bit sentimental. Everyone is on their best behaviour to the point that it feels a bit eggshell tinted, as if we can't talk about politics or get snappy in a normal way as everyone's worried about where that might lead. This, mixed with the usual dose of guilt that you don't come home more, boredom that you're back where you spent so many oppressive years and relief that you only have two days 22 hours to go means there is really nothing for it but to spend seven hours cooking an Ottolenghi dinner. In the same peculiar way, it has given the family its own set of Christmas traditions which will make it sad to break away if and when the time comes to go and do a booze-and-presents holiday with someone else's family.