santa came

i can't help but chuckle at that title. it isn't like its rude or anything, but to a boy from essex just about anything can seem rude... maybe one day i'll grow up, but i doubt it!

christmas day started sadly. 4am. mum knocking on the bedroom door. i wondered if we had slept in. or if she was getting revenge for us waking her that early when we where kids. it wasn't anything like that. no. "nan iris had died in the night. thought it best you know". my sister got up, made tea, did the dish washer. i pulled the duvet over me, squeezed close to cathy and mixed tears and sleep.

just a few hours earlier i'd sneaked back down stairs to drop off these stockings - a surprise for my family like the old days, when mum and dad (together then), would leave a stocking at the ends of our beds. i remember the feeling of waking up to the weight of the stocking full of small presents, satsumas, a shiny coin or two, and chocolate money on my legs. (it was, of course, a cunning ploy to keep us in bed longer - we could open the stocking presents without needing to wake them!).

it wasn't easy helping santa. my brother-in-law followed me back down stairs - looking for his mobile. i don't think he'd seen the carrier bag with these odd shapes sticking out of it, so i stashed it by the sofa and hoped he'd not see it as we looked for that phone. he claimed he never did see it and i explained why i'd been acting oddly as we looked for the phone (it was in the van).

i think everyone liked their stocking presents - just small things, like a chunky coloured pencil (called a "Woody" - my sister and i chuckled at that one!), some tea, a watercolour set for mum - and in some way i think it lightened the mood. didn't feel right waking up with a cheery "merry christmas!" like normal. i'd been asking cathy if it was christmas for months and now it was, i didn't feel much like asking - though she said i had to - just because it was. i was crying as i asked it, but she was right, i had to.

the day went better then. my in-laws came around. cathy made us all a lovely dinner - black-eyed bean cakes and ginger marmalade and all the trimmings; we went for a walk around jen's village in the snow, opened presents, watched doctor who. it was a perfect christmas really, right down to the white landscape.

but we missed you nan iris. and we always will.