12 Days of Clink Street Christmas: Daisy Mae_224’s Traditional Christmas

Published December 5, 2017 | By Laura

My next stop on the 12 days of Clink Street Christmas has arrived. Author Daisy Mae_224, the author of Dating Daisy shares her traditional Christmas. Over to you, Daisy Mae_224…

I’ve decided honesty is the best policy. If you are reading a Christmas blog, you probably expect to read how much I love Christmas. How I can’t wait for it to come round – again. How I love the preparations and the traditions etc… Well – you may just be disappointed.

I really dislike Christmas! And I am not Mrs Scrooge either!

– So now, I’ll try and explain why –

For starters, I’m not religious. I do actually like that part of Christmas however, as that is about story-telling, kindness, and involves the Nativity, children, and singing beautiful Christmas carols. It is rather magical to light candles in a church and sing Hark the Herald at the top of your voice on a cold winter’s evening.

It’s the commercial side of things which are so abhorrent. Somehow we are all caught in a trap of “finding something someone might like.” Also, even those little stocking fillers cost a fortune. And the vast majority, beautifully packaged they may be, will just end up in land fill sites. Having cleared out and downsized from my 6 bedroom house a few years ago, I am in fear of clutter. Never again will I be doing all that!

Let me say up front it’s not so much the cost. I’m a generous person and I love giving things to people and spreading a little happiness. It’s just that when the world is full of starving, poverty-stricken people, how can we the rich of the Western world, be quite so greedy. It makes me feel so uncomfortable. I don’t like opening my presents as I feel so guilty about that. I sit with a pile next to me and watch everyone else open theirs, and I just don’t want to do it.

The sad fact now is that as I am divorced and my parents have died, I can’t think of Christmas as the family occasion it used to be. I miss my parents, especially at Christmas. My children divide themselves up for a day each between myself and Voldemort. There is always a big row about which day is for who, and I dread it.

Then there’s the food. It isn’t a great Christmas to be sweating in the kitchen over an enormous and gastronomically fashionable Christmas dinner. How often have I downed a few gin and tonics one by one, stuck in the kitchen, while everyone else is laughing in the lounge. Because it’s supposed to be such an amazing dinner, it’s very stressful. Mostly they can’t all decide on one meal, so I’m trying to cook a turkey, a ham and a salmon for example, all at the same time. It just doesn’t work! And I’ve never been very good at gravy!

I have to say I like to plan the day so we don’t just “sit around looking at the tea cups!” Last year, soon after the children arrived on Christmas Eve, we went out for lunch at a New Forest pub, following a dog walk on Canada Common. When we got home, we all jumped in Edward’s amazingly hot, clean, sparklingly fresh, hot tub with a few mugs of tea.

After this came the cocktails – hot on the heels of a recent trip to the Bombay Sapphire Cocktail Master class (which I highly recommend as a great afternoon out by the way!). The children – all adults now – loved that.

We then played some games. I had downloaded some Christmas dingbats which were entertaining. We played a dictionary game – who knows the real meaning of the word “ouanawitch?” Is it really an unwanted Christmas present? Or a sea creature on the verge of extinction? – No – it’s actually “a land-locked Alaskan salmon!” We ended up with a game called “Pass the Pud,” involving an exploding Christmas pudding!

The Christmas meal we had late in the evening, and I have to say I bought most of it in COOK! I highly recommend this shop which is as near to home cooking as you can get – better probably. We had: venison and pistachio pate, salmon en-croute and a salted caramel cheesecake. I only had to do the vegetables, and this meant I could stay with the family and not be holed up in the kitchen. I plan to do it again this year!

We then did our present opening to great hilarity, and collapsed in front of my favourite, Mrs Browns’ Boys! I adore the revolving Christmas tree don’t you!

There is a whole psychology to present giving which I find very interesting indeed. Over the years I have tied myself in knots trying to give people a perfect present. If there is an object they require, such as a toaster or a hair dryer, well that’s very simple. But most people have those things so one has to be more creative. I really do not want to spend money on things people don’t want. If you ask what they want, they just say – nothing! So it’s a no win situation.

My solution has been to buy them an experience, such as a pamper day, a go-karting experience, theatre tickets… that kind of thing. I think that’s preferable and seems to work well. For the stockings they still get a lot of things they need anyway … socks, toothbrush, underwear, body spray, posh shampoo and conditioner – but perhaps a shade nicer than they would buy for themselves.

My most successful present, and this is what they all had from me last year, always seems to be a holiday. Last year, as I was soon to be having my 55^th birthday and my son his 21st, on Christmas Day I gave them a holiday to get excited about! A trip in May, to New York with 6 days back transatlantic on the Queen Mary 2! This was an exceptional present, but I decided to do it as I hadn’t taken them all away for a long time, and I love them. We needed some sort of bonding family treat. And besides, I wanted to dance in the Queen Mary 2 ballroom with Edward. Hence the Statue of Liberty Duck for the hot tub!

After Christmas, Edward and I usually go to London between Christmas and New Year for two nights. Last year we went to see The Jersey Boys, had a Ballroom lesson at a ballroom in Kensington, went to the National Gallery for an art tour, and went to La Soiree in Leicester square which was fantastic! This keeps us busy and happy, until the New Year’s Eve Black Tie Ball!!

Christmas isn’t all bad. I love the chance to have my children together for once. I love an opportunity to spoil them. I love us all sitting down to share a special meal. We always keep a cheerful atmosphere and remember my mother and father, and the others we have lost the best we can. But I do heave a sigh of relief when it’s over for another year, and I don’t have to wrestle with all the conflicting emotions Christmas brings.

I do like looking forward to the New Year, and all the great things already planned. I’m usually optimistic and positive. But I will never be a Christmas addict I’m afraid.

What’s the best thing about Christmas?

Why the Strictly Come Dancing final of course – with fish and chips, and champagne!

Daisy x

About Dating Daisy:

What do you do when you’re a newly divorced 52-year-old mother, keen for a second chance of romance? Why internet dating of course! Daisy Mae_224 embarks on the internet dating process with trepidation.

Having not been on the dating scene for nearly 30 years, and with fairly rudimentary computer skills, she finds herself embroiled in a series of haphazard and hilarious situations. Daisy keeps a diary of her internet dating life and reveals detail by detail, the ups and downs of her midlife dating extravaganza. Soon after starting out, Daisy realises her true mission.

With no past experience and no-one/nothing to guide her, she needs to produce – Internet Dating lessons. Read on to find out about PLONKERS, muppets and MAWDs, and a whole host of amusing anecdotes, tips and ideas. Working by day as a Sexual Health doctor, the story as it unfolds contains accounts of Daisy’s clinical experiences with patients in the Sexual Health clinic.

She also reflects on her past life with Voldemort (the dreadful ex-husband). With advice and encouragement from Imogen, her 17 year old daughter, her surrogate parents known as the Amigos, with a big house and swanky swimming pool, her friend Pinkie and from Jeannie, her nonagenarian friend from the Nursing Home, Daisy resiliently persists in her quest to find a long term partner.

This is a heartfelt story that will ring bells with anyone who has ended a long term relationship and now wants to find somebody new. It is humorously written, full of emails, poems, limericks, and even a recipe! Daisy can’t resist her pages of advice on topics like “Kissing” and “Anti-Snoring.”

It is a unique and highly amusing book, which will make you laugh out loud! So read on and see. Will Dating Daisy find her “prairie vole?” Or will the whole process end in disaster?

About Daisy Mae_224…

Living in the South of England Daisy_224 shares many similar professional, life, and dating, experiences as her protagonist; for this reason she has chosen to write under a pen name.

To view Dating Daisy on Amazon UK – https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dating-Daisy-Mae-ebook

It’s also on Audiobook: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dating-Daisy-Mae

You can follow DaisyMae_224 on twitter – https://twitter.com/daisy_sharer

To sign up to the Dating Daisy website go to www.datingdaisy.net

She’s also on Facebook and Instagram or read her blog at www.huffingtonpost.co.uk and blog posts at www.menopausematters.co.uk