Christmas Eve, differently

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Originally uploaded by goforchris.

Traditions endure - and yet things change. Until a couple of years ago, Carols from King's was the background to my big Martha moment, making stuffing, cooking sausages, doing funny things with giblets. The house smelled wonderful, and there were either visiting family dotting in and out of the room or we were anxiously anticipating their arrival through whatever weather obtained at the time - though to be honest it was usually gales and rain. I would have spent the morning lugging a turkey home, depositing it in the shed to keep cool - not schlepping round the Bishop's Glen in the sunshine marvelling at the frosticles on every branch and wondering why I felt so strange.

Because I do feel strange. I find it disconcerting to be packing a suitcase and trying to remember shoes as well as boots (for the socialising, you know), to be stressing about catching the first ferry in the morning and hoping the fog doesn't return. Instead of looking tidy and prepared, the house is its usual slightly random self, with the addition of a Christmas tree (above) and cards on every available flat surface (another casualty of our straitened workforce; I lost the will to hang them on their holders). I'm cooking nothing other than tonight's dinner, and have a relatively empty fridge in anticipation of a visit to Tesco on the way home.

But first there's Midnight Mass, with incense, candles, carols, that lovely bit of Liszt on the organ, singing with other musicians - all the things I love and which keep me here when I could already be relaxing with my family. I shall not feel as joyous rising at 7ish when I've been in bed well after 2am; hence this moment snatched from organising myself to relax over a blether. But now I must make sure I've packed ...

Happy Christmas when it comes - and let's hear it for Western Ferries!