Sunday 28 November 2010

I've joined Sian's Christmas Club

I've joined in with Sian's Christmas Club to share memories of Christmas Past.
 This photo was taken the first year I invited my, then boyfriend now, husband, to my parents' family Boxing Day. We are the ones sitting on the floor. Don't you love my shiny satin blouse?
It was traditional when I was growing up to spend Christmas Day with my dad's family and Boxing Day (26th Dec for those of you who don't know) at home with my Mum's family. This included 2 Aunts and Uncles, 4 cousins and, later, their partners and my Nan, making about 16 for a lunch of cold turkey and Bubble and Squeak (refried potatoes and cabbage).

Although my Mum is not a game player the rest of the year, we were never allowed to watch TV over Christmas; we had to join in with family board games. This ALWAYS resulted in arguments, especially when Mum devised her own quizzes without answers. As the eldest cousin, I was in charge of writing cues for Give Us A Clue. The only problem being that, as the eldest, I was obviously ahead of my cousins in all things academic, and as a reader I came up with cues such as 'Wuthering Heights' instead of 'Jaws'. I was then roundly castigated for thinking of things no-one else knew. (It was a pretty well known film too, I thought, but hey)
By the time this photo was taken,  P (who went to Oxford - this was important to my aunts, neither of whom went to university) and I were both teaching and, without wishing to boast, we won most of the guessing games very easily. It was an embarassing affair, and was probably the beginning of the end for family quizzes.

The following year, as you can see here, we stuck to levelling games like Jenga, which we were all rubbish at after a  few glasses of Christmas cheer, except for my brother who was something of a Jenga hustler when travelling in Thailand.
Go over High in the Sky to read some other childhood Christmas stories.

6 comments:

Sian said...

Kirsty, this is brilliant! What wonderful memories - so vividly magicked up for us too! Thank you :) You've got me thinking about pulling out a few board games for my lot this year.

Becky said...

Great memory, really made me chuckle when I imagined everyone trying to guess Wuthering Heights! Your writing is very evocative, I thoroughly enjoyed your story. Thanks.

Liberty :) said...

great memories! I'm a brute when it comes to christmas quizzes and games. I'm not competitive, but hate cheating and they always cheat grrr!!

scrappyjacky said...

Great memories......we sometimes play board games...though even they can cause arguments!

Amy said...

Christmas becomes 'games' time for us too :-) Great fun isn't it!

Anonymous said...

What great memories - makes me want to dig out some board games this year.