The day before

I honestly can’t believe that I hadn’t thought of it before. 

Looking back now, it makes perfect sense. The same blood that courses through my veins and infected with the desire to “show off a bit” pumps its way through the big hearts of my children too. 

I had a renewed purpose and would create and direct a live performance in my own front room with the offspring as the stars (featuring a cameo from me, why should they have all the fun?)

Quickly dialling down these lofty ambitions of an epic retelling of the birth of Christ, on the eve of his birthday, instead, under the guise of playing a game, I had my lot doing some improv and whilst I am of course biased, they were absolutely fantastic at it.

The Youngest in particular had me crying with laughter as when given her situation (you’ve arrived at a Harry Styles concert, but you’ve lost your ticket) she created a whole elaborate backstory about her car breaking down and how she should be let in because it’s Christmas. Of slight concern was her ability to immediately fabricate a story, get another to buy into it and then emotionally blackmail that person with the salient points from it. Slight concern, but really bloody funny!

M’boy was into it too and quickly adjusted to the idea of just going with something (only rule of the game: you can’t say “no”) and trying to solve a problem however stupid, ie. guarding the gates of hell from a man who thinks he’s arrived in heaven.  

Still in those awkward teen years where to be seen to be acting silly or showing one’s self up is akin to DEATH, The Eldest was a little more reserved, choosing instead to rely on the cards, but I could see she was enjoying it really.

I threw in some cards from Cards Against Humanity (family version) which had to be thrown in to the conversation at random points, which worked really well – particularly as there are lots of fart, poop and “stinky joe’s butt sauce” references contained therein, which had us all giggling.

It was a fine way to step into Christmas at the end of a truly lovely day, which had started with a proper winter’s morning walk with the wee ones down by the river (saw the kingfisher – fist pump), lunch and a nice conversation with The Eldest (extra) followed by a repeat viewing of the Muppet’s faithful retelling of A Christmas Carol.

Rizzo’s kiss of Gonzo’s nose as the latter stares at the former with pure incredulity on finding that he had his missing jelly beans in his pocket the whole time, tells you all you need to know about a relationship built on an unbreakable foundation of finding each other utterly ridiculous whilst loving each other unconditionally all the more for it.

Gold.