Theories even more insane than what's actually happening
Theories even more insane than what's actually happening
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Wow. Nick Frost has got Santa down. How things have turned around since Robot of Sherwood where it was Clara asking the Doctor when it was he stopped believing in fairy tales. Will we get an explanation about the fairy stories we’ve seen this series? This special looks like it is not a mere one off, but ties directly into the themes and concepts of series 8.
I’m guessing the tangerines are left in the Christmas stockings on the fireplace? Something is going on – and has been going on for awhile now, I’d wager. Missy tampered with the Doctor’s timeline, for one. I think she was the central cause of what happened in Deep Breath and Robot of Sherwood, but why give Androids the idea of the promised land?
This looks like a doozy of a Christmas special. Hope it’ll bring some closure for Clara and the Doctor.
The one thing that jumped out at me is Dan Starkey gets to finally play a role other than Strax!
Still a little helper though.
Why do I get the odd feeling in my gut that Santa is going to be a Time Lord, out to correct the damage done by the Master, and now in direct conflict with the Doctor – who presumably knows what is at stake if he brings back certain people who may have died – i.e. a whole timey-wimey mess is going to happen? … perhaps this will be as dark as some of the original Santa myths!
In the official trailer … is that Journey Blue that we see?
And the first bed in the morgue where the bodies sit up, it looks like a Silurian head … but I presume it is actually the species of monster we see later on in the trailer – the one with the sticky saliva!
On second thoughts, maybe Santa is Missy regenerated, and the Nethersphere has survived somehow and is at the North Pole?
(2 bonkers theories in 2 minutes … I think it’s time I watched the trailer for the 25th time!)
Santa: “Be sure to save some room for a tangerine, Doctor.”
Doctor: “Nobody likes the tangerines.”
Look of bewilderment on Santa.
Also on Blenkinsop. Could the Doctor be referring to the band, The Tangerines?
http://thetangerines.bandcamp.com/
Is so, I am in agreement with the Doctor on that one.
@macphisto96 I agree Missy was central to Deep Breath. Remember when the Doctor and Clara are describing the type of person who would have put the ad in the paper? An egotistical needly game-player. Although they each thought it described the other, it also describes Missy. Now why she would want the Doctor to be captured by the robots is not clear (to me anyway) but she must have been behind it. One could argue that she transported them to dinosaur times for some purpose as well. Don’t have a theory for that yet.
@blenkinsopthebrave
Quaint English (possibly British, but certainly English) Christmas tradition of food stocks got in for Christmas, including tangerines (or satsumas). Along with with all kinds of cheesy nibbles, peanuts, turkish delight, and pretty much any snack food you can imagine. To avoid the risk of running out, innit? (hung over from the days when shops closed early on Christmas Eve and didn’t open again until the day after Boxing Day)
Thanks for the links oh mighty @Craig. In the Children in Need trailer Clara there looks decidedly un pregnant. I would guess some time has lapsed given her response to the Doctor so Orson as descendant is looking less and less likely.
Nick Frost’s Santa may not be the “real Santa” but I would hope that the special is going to be mindful of the fact that some of the audience are very young and still nurturing their own Santa magic.
Hoping that Santa will turn out to be a truant time lord. That central glowing thing does look rather like a Tardis control.
Cheers
Janette
Having watched again I am a little perplexed. I appear to have watched Nick Frost doing some actual acting, rather than playing Simon Pegg’s Mate.
The glowing central thing look rather more like a skylight than a console….but maybe that’s what we are mean to think.
So a super crazy lunatic notion is …. Santa is Missy in Disguise Oh No!!
If this is so then talk about an identity crisis! but nah – can’t be that
@IAMNotAFishIAmAFreeMan -you led me to this ‘bonkerism’ thanks? lol
@Pedant. You’re right. It’s a skylight. Oh well another bonkers theory hits the dust. I wonder if Clara lost her belief in Santa when her mother died. From very hazy memory I would guess that she was about nine in the funeral scene.
Tangerines are Satsumas which in Oz are Mandarins. I am even more confused now.
Cheers
Janette
This is pretty fun. I watched it twice, laughed like a lunatic both times. I loved the elf’s line about not usually being upstaged on a roof top!
@janetteB I’m pretty sure that Moffat and Co. would never present a Christmas special that would interfere with the Santa belief systems of younger viewers. 🙂 (By the way, we call them Mandarins in Canada, too. I always get two, because my husband, like the Doctor, doesn’t like them!)
@Arbutus thank you thankyou. I could not work out what the elf said. (Probably because of my laptop’s crappy speaker. My son and I both had our ears to it and could not make it out so was not just my bad hearing.)
Also I hope you are right re’ the belief system So Santa will really be Santa? That would be even better than finding out that Robin Hood was real after all and just like Errol Flynn!! 🙂
Cheers
Janette
Even better think of the troll response to Dr Who depicting Santa as real. I’m hearing the “is this made for kids?” wailing already. I would love to be able to post that now, just to prempt the trolls and thus deplete their sails of wind.
I am really, really looking forward to the Christmas special this year, probably because finally the Doctor is meeting Santa. Long have I wanted this to happen though he did imply once that he was Santa, telling Rose, “remember that bike etc etc”, I don’t recall the entire line or which story it was but it was Eccles Doctor. I hope someone with a better memory than me can fill in the gaps.
Cheers
Janette
@blenkinsopthebrave @pedant @janetteB re the reference to tangerines: when I was a small child, many, many moons ago, we used to leave a woollen knee sock draped over the foot of the bed on Christmas Eve, ready for Father Christmas (never Santa Claus) to fill. It was a tradition, fairly widespread, I think, for a tangerine, usually wrapped in silver or gold foil, to be placed in the toe of the sock together with a few walnuts, with other small presents on top. Presents from family members and friends were placed under the tree and quite separate from those left by Father Christmas.
Clementines, satsumas, mandarins and tangerines are quite similar in appearance and perhaps they are sometimes lumped together under one name or another, but they are in fact different varieties and taste slightly different. In my neck of the woods, at least, they are still labelled separately, although the seasons for mandarins and tangerines seems to be fairly short and they aren’t always available.
I hesitate to contradict the Doctor, but we liked the tangerines very much and regarded them as a treat – maybe in part because in those far off days they and the other small orange-type fruits were not available at other seasons of the year.
@Mudlark Thank you for explaining that. I guess being a winter fruit that tradition did not extend to these up-side-down shores. I think the term “tangerine” is used for a variety of mandarin but down in up-side-down-land “satsumas” refers to a variety of plum. Christmas traditions vary a lot from family to family. My S.O. and siblings only got presents from Santa and none at all from family which I found strange. As a child we got both. Our boys received their main pressies from Santa/Father Christmas, partly because we were buying from overseas and it made it easier to reinforce the magic when they recieved toys from Santa, or Father Christmas that they knew were not available in local toy shops. Our eldest will be 19 in a few weeks and we have still not acknowledged that it is just a myth though long has he known that we know that he knows. There will be three well stuffed stockings hanging by the fire place again this year because we believe in Santa/Father Christmas just as much as we believe that there really is a time lord in a blue police box protecting this planet. What a combination, the Doctor and Father Christmas. Long overdue I say. 🙂
Cheers
Janette
The official trailer looks very creepy – gotta love a slimy alien with squelchy noises, LOL. Agree with the others who have pointed out comparisons with Alien meets the Thing.
The CiN trailer –
Why is Clara on a rooftop in her nightie? (I agree with @pedant that it looks like a roof-light – they’re common in flats and big houses). Santa seems decidedly creepy! That Ho Ho Ho is a bit “off”! There’s no sign of any transport for him, although there are presents. I’ve no doubt the Santa myth is safe in Moffat’s hands, like Robin Hood he will leave it open to interpretation. I’m not convinced that this character is actually Santa tho. But I like how they turn it round – that presents are from your mum and dad is the myth. Definitely a continuation of Series 8 (ha! I got 1 thing right 🙂 )
I agree no pregnancy (phew! 😉 ); this would seem to be the first time Clara and the Doctor have met since Death in Heaven. She seems muted, still grieving. @JanetteB I wondered that too, if Clara’s belief in fairy tales stopped with her mother’s death; she’s sad when she says it. Nice touch when the TARDIS materialises on “Did you really?” And then she touches his arm as if she can’t quite believe he’s real.
How is Santa connected to the North Pole base?
And agree with @Craig – Strax as evil elf is fun
Tangerines/satsumas/mandarins/clementines – little oranges that were traditionally (in the UK) put into socks (which you hung up next to your bed) with (as @Mudlark says) little gifts that were from Santa. Usually sweets or small toys. Back in the day (!) tangerines (etc) were only available in the shops from Hallowe’en till Christmas so the smell and taste for some of us is extremely evocative of dark nights, warm fires and Christmas preparations. I love tangerines 😉 Now you can buy them all year round (with a massive range of other fruits) so they’re not seen as a special thing.
Pa! Debunking Santa is one thing, but now the show is having a go at tangerines!
That’s it, they’ve gone too far!! I’m never watching it again!!!
😉
@JanetteB
Love your post about Christmas in your house – sounds lovely. The great thing about having kids is the Santa/Father Christmas thing, and the “everyone knows” but no-one calls you out on it. Except the occasional vindictive older sibling! We still hang up stockings as well. And leave out a glass of whisky and a mince pie for Rudolf!
Elves with attitude! (and I didn’t realise that was Dan Starkey when I watched this last night, but it seems so obvious now that I know. Glad that he has some camera time as himself, albeit with pointy ears)
The Tardis materialising just as Santa mocks Clara for not believing in fairy tales anymore.
Clara does as she is told!
‘Happy Easter’. heh heh heh
I want to believe that Santa won’t really be Father Christmas, but his warning to The Doctor that he’ll be glad of his help makes me wonder who he is. @Ozitenor (and @janetteB and others) — Time Lord is really the only possible explanation, isn’t it? 🙂 But I agree with @pedant and @scaryb that it’s a roof light we see – tantalisingly looking like a potential Tardis console, to keep us theorising.
Hello @scaryb
We always had tangerines in the toes of our stockings at Christmas, too. I grew up with a severe allergy to oranges but tangerines are different enough that I could eat them. We also had walnuts and pecans and almonds. Christmas stockings were basically, then, for the fruit & nuts. Nowadays, stockings are for little prezzies (‘stocking fillers’) and I’m sad that the traditional fillers apparently no longer apply.
Certainly, Santa has no idea that the tangerines are not liked! (Santa, I like them. Please leave them again this year.)
@mudlark
Your childhood Christmas memories sound wonderful. Such traditional customs never made to my youthful Christmas experience, more’s the pity. Perhaps it was the result of growing up with the experience of a hot Australian Christmas.
But it is never too late. Now that Mrs Blenkinsop and I are in Canada (the first snow of the season fell a couple of days ago) I think we should take Christmas eve a bit more seriously this time. And we do have a Doctor Who story to inpire us this time!
So, tangerines in foil it is. Indeed, more research is required.
I would be prepared to bet rather more than I can afford that this is not the ‘real’ Santa. His ho,ho hoing is not in the least convincing, and would the real Santa employ malicious elves? Really? There is also the fact that the red outfit with white fur is a tradition largely if not wholly confined to the Anglophone countries. For my French nephews, when they were young, Pere Noel appeared resplendent in a medieval bishop’s robes, and in the Netherlands he visits on the feast of St Nicholas, December 6th (which I suppose reduces the workload on Christmas Eve! On the other hand, it picks up on the theme of fairly stories which has been a feature of this series
It seems that the Doctor knows, or at least strongly suspects who ‘Santa’ is, and does not think he is a good man. If they work together to defeat a greater threat it will be on very guarded terms, I suspect.
Sadly, we did not continue the tradition of Christmas stockings after my youngest brothers reached the age of nine or ten. Being the eldest, I benefited, and was able to continue hanging up my stocking long after I had stopped even pretending to believe. I knew some people for whom all presents came from Father Christmas (they tended to hang up pillow cases rather than socks). We, on the other hand, had to face the post-Christmas task of writing ‘thank you’ letters to all the relatives and unofficial uncles and aunts who had sent us gifts – my mother used to keep a careful record of who had sent what to whom when we opened them (in the late afternoon, after Christmas dinner and the washing up). It was quite a good system in some ways: the stocking presents kept us occupied during the morning, while the parents were preparing dinner, and the family presents kept us occupied while they were preparing tea (with sherry trifle and Christmas cake, of course).
I have to wonder, since Clara is not pregnant, whither Orson Pink? When Santa knocks on the TARDIS and says that things need to get sorted quickly and that Clara and the Doctor are not alright, I wonder if he is going beyond the realm of emotions?
If Danny’s hit (literally) was staged by Missy, there could be cascading effects through the timestreams – and maybe a part of that is fairy tales manifesting themselves. Orson Pink did play a good sized role in the Doctor’s (or the Master’s) timestream via Clara. The visit with Orson Pink directly led to the jump to Gallifrey. Not sure how the base at the North Pole plays in here, but I have a feeling that we’ll have several questions answered at Christmas with more left (or introduced) to puzzle us as we wait for series 9.
@Mudlark
I’d say sarcastic rather than malicious.
@pedant Sarcastic, I grant you, but it looked to me like sarcasm with malice aforethought 🙂
@ScaryB
now you’ve got me all warm and fuzzy with nostalgia! Open fires; stirring the Christmas pudding and making our wishes; foraging in the hedgerows for holly and evergreens to decorate the house, the smell of baking mince pies and cinnamon … drifts off into a wistful reverie.
When we were very young one of the things that made Christmas especially magical was that our parents did not decorate the tree until after we had gone to bed on Christmas eve, so that it was all a wonderful surprise in the morning. I shudder to think how they must have felt, having stayed up into the early hours of the morning finishing the preparations, to be woken around 5 am by over-excited children eager to show them what Father Christmas had brought.
When my son was about five or six, I’d snuck in and retrieved the empty sock from the end of his bed and was filling it (foil-wrapped tangerine – or more likely satsuma – in the toe, of course) when he was heard coming down the stairs. I had no time to do more than hold it down the side of the chair away from where he was standing. He was sleepily puzzled and anxious about where his stocking had gone, so I told him Father Christmas had obviously come for it in order to fill it, and if he didn’t go back to sleep, he wouldn’t be able to put it back. Fortunately he was convinced and I was able to sneak it back in later on without waking him. In the morning he told me I was right, as he’d heard the sleigh bells.
My 34-year-old daughter still loves a stocking, and the first thing to go in is still the foil-wrapped tangerine.
Loved the clip on CiN last night and it took ages to recognize Dan Starkey!
I’m of an age to remember the satsumas/tangerines in stockings from Father Christmas too, but my belief was waning when it was restored one Christmas. We always used to leave a mince pie and a glass of sherry for him and a carrot for the reindeer before I went to bed on Christmas Eve. When I came down the next morning, they had all gone (as usual!). At the time, we didn’t have fitted carpets and underneath was a black material like very hard tar. On the border next to where the treats stood was a distinct hoof shape in the floor. This convinced me for a couple more years that Father Christmas existed! When I spoke to my mother decades later, she still didn’t know how it got there, and when I got a new carpet recently, it’s still there!
Although I’m 56 and have no children, I still look forward to Christmas and get excited every Christmas Eve when the local Rotary Club have Father Christmas visit every street in our town, ringing a bell and wishing everyone a Happy Christmas – 35,000 people have a great start to the festivities, heh.
With Doctor Who at Christmas every year, there’s even more to look forward to.
Have been doing more research on Christmas traditions that I seemed to have largely missed out on as a child.
Would I be correct in thinking that it would be appropriate for the Master/Missy to find a lump of coal in his/her Christmas stocking?
After all, it is hard to think of a child who has been as very bad as the Master/Missy.
@blenkinsopthebrave When s/he was a child , before s/he became the Master/Missy, s/he may have been given the benefit of the doubt, but not now. Her stocking these days would contain a lump of coal and nothing else.
@mudlark @blenkinsopthebrave – and i imagine the master/missy has been saving all those lumps of coal, year after year, regen after regen, for some nefarious purpose… possibly to roast santa in a chimney, over a sooty fire?
[insert evil cackle here]
🙂
@JanetteB
I would suspect that the special is going to hint that all those older children and adults who insist it’s your parents simply don’t know what’s really going on.
Santa’s little helpers (I kept trying to remember who one was because I knew I knew him – of course! Dan Starkey!) do seem rather of the ‘and if the kid isn’t fast asleep, I’ve got a stocking full of sand’ variety. Not magic sand. Just sand. 😉
Bonkers theory–the line by Santa: “Be sure to save some room for a tangerine, Doctor” is actually a clue–the pocket universe containing Gallifrey is inside the tangerine…
What better present could the Doctor get for Christmas?
@Janette and all – a bit of trivia about Satsuma’s – they are a variety of tangerine that originates
from Japan as are the plums – I have both of those trees and they are excellent yummy varieties.
Interestingly here in N. California we also export both of them to Japan as well as a lot of Sushi rice,
persimmons etc!
It made me sad to hear the Doctor say he doesn’t like tangerines – maybe he hasn’t tried a Satsuma ?
Extended bonkers theory: Santa will make a point of making sure the Doctor accepts the tangerine; the Doctor (thinking it is just a tangerine, but also important because of what happened in the Christmas special) keeps it in the TARDIS all during series 9, only to discover in the Christmas special 2015 that he has been carrying Gallifrey with him all the time.
The Doctor’s faith in Santa is restored and everybody lives happily ever after.
@blenkinsopthebrave, what a delightful idea, Gallifrey within a Tangerine, it conjures up an amazing visual , thank you.
A Tangerine Dream perhaps?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peCO8A1npJI
@Ozitenor, a Time Lord Santa would certainly explain how Santa can get everywhere, but I would’ve expected the Doctor to be happier to see him, he doesn’t look very happy to see Santa at all. The reptiles do remind me of something but their silhouettes are wrong for Silurians, (yes I have gone through it on slowmo several times, sorry )
We used to get Satsumas, not Tangerines.
It’s not clear how much time has passed between the series finale and Christmas. If Clara had been pregnant, could she not have had the baby already? And also, to me she seemed surprisingly acquiescent, and very silent. Did anyone else think there was something almost dream-like about the way she walked inside the TARDIS and closed the door behind her?
@Katharine My son has always had a small artificial Christmas tree in his room, and every year we leave a small gift under it for him to open when he wakes up. As he has gotten older, it has become harder and harder to sneak in with the gift. Last year, I realized that there was no way I would be able to outlast him at bedtime (he is now 15), so I actually did it in the morning before he woke up. The perils of being the middle-aged parent of a teenager!
@lisa We get satsumas from California here in British Columbia, and they are delicious. Isn’t that interesting about the sushi rice? The thing is, the old world has the population, but the new world has the space. Canada exports a lot of durum wheat to Italy, where they make it into pasta and sell it back to us! And I recently learned that most of the French Dijon mustard is now made with Canadian-grown mustard seed. At Christmas, I buy Japanese mandarins by the crateful, as they are what we always had as children (yes, in the bottom of the stocking, we still do that!), and my son and I tend to overconsumption!
@blenkinsopthebrave I really like your extended Christmas bonkers tangerine theory. Gallifrey in a tangerine! Regarding lumps of coal, a couple of years ago, a local chocolate shop was hand-rolling chocolate balls that came packaged and labelled “lump of coal”. I put one in my son’s stocking, but then I had to explain what it was as it looked a bit too realistic.
I’m enjoying the sharing of everyone’s Christmas memories. It’s fascinating when you throw everyone’s different age and cultural background into the mix, how you get back interesting differences and surprising similarities. I hope that they are not considered too far off topic, or if the mods think it better, I would enjoy reading more of them in the pub. 🙂
@mudlark indeed the tree decorated late on Christmas. In the Czech countries and my parents did this too (in Adelaide), the hidden tree was dressed and shown to me, like a ceremony, on the Eve, that is, after Christmas dinner. Nervously, and holding a deep breath, I would tip-toe into our formal sitting room to see a magnificent tree glittering with miniscule lights and playfully, around the room, would be tiny, cream and white candles -on the mantle, on the hearth, on the coffee tables. I was alight with joy and totally mesmerised.
Then the presents were opened but only after midnight mass. Going into Adelaide City and seeing the carollers dressed in deep red and green outfits of velvet and corduroy carrying little candles whilst the 15 foot cathedral trees swayed and blazed with light causing the multi-coloured decorations to tinkle gently in the night breeze was absolute magic.
Christmas Day was a rest day to reflect and write those notes. In Brisbane we do both elements: the tree is decorated early, we remember Father Christmas on December 6, as St Nicholas, and we have Christmas Dinner on the Eve and then a more relaxing Christmas breakfast after the gifts are opened on the 25th. Of course, the A/C is on and we have cold ham and potato salad or fresh fish as it’s too hot for much else. The custard with the pudding stays cold and there’s mangos instead of tangerines.
I try to connect the parts of my childhood with the more Australian, or Western traditions and this year, more so, as yesterday, dear Dad, suffering from dementia, finally passed away in his sleep; forty years exactly after his wife and my mother, died in 1974. Lots of memories to discuss, quietly, this year.
On a note about the Doctor, I will probably ask myself, what are the dead? Waves and energy? Light shining from a Christmas star? I recall Patroklos who appears to Achilles in a dream. Achilles, overjoyed at seeing his dear old friend, tries to throw his arms around him and then, abruptly, Patroklos vanishes but not before Achilles hears the apparition: “the dead appear to us in dreams because that’s the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining from a dead star”.
I think Santa in the Christmas Special may well be just that – Father Christmas with a terrific gift for the grumpy, over-cautious Doctor who says to Robin, “you’re a fairy tale, you can’t be real”. Maybe our new Doctor needs a little push in the right direction: that stories can be real and heroes just stories, too. I think River also commented on this long ago, “we’re all just stories in the end”.
If I could ask the Doctor, “are you real?”, I might think that there would be so much other stuff to say, but not a lot of time in which to say it, and even if there was, would it be, somehow, beside the point? I would probably ask instead, “are you happy?”
@Blenkinsopthebrave what a tremendous theory: Gallifrey in a fruit!
@Katherine and @Arbutus we also used to put a tiny tree in BoyIlion’s room whereupon a small gift would emerge come Christmas morning. By now, that little tree has fallen over and died 🙁 so we have our slightly bigger, but still artificial tree in the living room where, early on, just like my parents did, we would sprinkle flour (as snow) near puddles of water and, nearby, would lay, conspicuously, a large shortbread with a huge half moon -sized bite …and a drained glass of milk.
Happy thoughts to all!
Kindest, puro
apologies to @Katharine -misspelt your name, there!
@purofilion
Oh, Puro. I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m very glad, though, that it was peaceful, and one hopes, painless. My sympathies to you and the immediate and extended Ilion family. xo
@Arbutus thank you very much. It was, if that’s possible, a better way to die than many others.
Sympathy for the loss of your father @purofilion.
I dislike the Australian way of celebrating Christmas. Work Christmas Eve, overdose on gifts and food on Christmas Day, spend Boxing Day watching the cricket or going to the cinema and then back to work, brush hands, it’s all over. In Sweden Christmas begins on the Twelth, St Lucia ‘s Day and really goes through to Ephinany which is a public holiday. I believe that 12th night is also celebrated in Latin America. We used to have a 12th night party with pinyata and token gifts, just to extend the festivities as long a possible. Last year we were os but will try to revive the tradition this year.
I am rather hoping that Father Christmas will be real or at least possibly real leaving it to the viewer to decide for themselves if he is real or not. I did not think the elves were malicious just cheeky. WE have an annoyingly long wait to find out.
Cheers
Janette
Puro, I’m sorry for your loss too. My own dad died around this time of year, as did my favourite grandfather, both heart-attack casualties in the never-ending Midwestern battle with snow.
American Christmas is the worst: Boxing Day doesn’t exist and most people work on Christmas Eve, so people often have to pack in a lot of celebrating into very little time. My best friend’s dad was English, so at least I got a taste for Boxing Day (and the food components of British Christmas) before I moved to London, but we also had to do Christmas Eve with one set of grandparents and then Christmas Day with the other set. It must be murder for people who have to visit two different cities in 36 hours to achieve same.
One set of grandparents was totally WASP, so we had ham, dauphinoise potatoes, seafood starters, French Silk dessert and (for the adults) many cocktails (kids got a small red glass of peppermint Schnapps). At the Swedish/Polish grandparents, the meal was neither Polish nor Swedish (trust me, you never want to face lutefisk as part of any dinner). It was more seafood starters (people eating their body weight in jumbo shrimp and crab legs), prime rib, twice-baked potatoes, fine green beans and whatever pies guests brought (apple, pumpkin, more French Silk, Key lime, lemon meringue). The Christmas cookie inventory was a bit more Scandi: Spritz cookies, gingerbread and if we were lucky, krumkake. The evening would end in some kind of take-no-prisoners, play-for-real-money poker game between my grandfather and any other visiting adults. My little sister used to go around minesweeping half-drunk beers (*sigh*).
Instead of tangerines, my Christmas stocking featured a seedless orange the size of a bowling ball, an apple of similar size, plus a load of chocolate coins and a choc Santa to divert me for a few hours from the boxes of See’s chocolate my mother was trying to hoard to herself. We did have bowls of stem-on tangerines or clementines just sitting around next to the See’s chocolates, though.
@purofilion
So very sorry to hear of your loss. It has been over a decade since my dad passed away under similar circumstances. Last month, Mrs Blenkinsop’s father passed away too. In fact, his condition was one of the main reasons for us emigrating from Australia to Canada, where the rest of her family lives, so that she could have some time with him, which was very important.
In a strange sort of way, it is only when your parents are gone that it finally feels like you have grown up.
Take care.
@Pufferfish Oh, your post made me smile. Eating your body weight in everything seems to be a part of most people’s Christmas memories. My mother’s parents were both Ukrainian, but my grandmother was born in Canada, so our Christmas dinners were a weird morphing of eastern and western Europe. We had cabbage rolls, braided bread, and pickled herring alongside turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes. There was always a dish of rather nasty canned cocktail olives on the table (as a result of which, I never learned to appreciate olives until well on into adulthood and my discovery of proper Mediterranean food!). We ate until we could hardly move, and then all the men went into the living room to watch TV and the women cleaned up the mess! (This was less terrible than it sounds; we were actually a highly matriarchal family!)
@janetteB I was first introduced to the celebration of Twelfth Night on a trip to the Caribbean. We’re all over it now, especially since my husband was born in New Orleans (although he didn’t live there for long) and has faint memories of King cakes when he was small. So we start lighting candles at the beginning of Advent and carry on celebrating right through to Epiphany, because we can, and the longer Christmas lasts the better, since the next three months will generally see a lot of grey skies and cold wet mornings. 🙂
I am of the view that in some way, the “truth” of Santa will be left ambiguous. I’m not sure how else you can handle it knowing small children will be watching. Although I guess you might say that there is a real Santa, but this isn’t him, as do with the department store ones. I think the other way would be more fun, though.
@blenkinsopthebrave Sympathies to you and Mrs. Blenkinsop as well. You are absolutely right about the sense of age that comes when you begin to lose the previous generation. My own parents are still thankfully going strong, but some of the older aunts and uncles are moving into that zone of concern now, and I have several close friends who have lost parents in the past year. It’s the changes in our family that really force us to see the passage of time!
And can I say that I’m certain that the arrival of the Blenkinsops could only have been a win for the Greater Toronto Area! 🙂
Oh @purofilion – I somehow overlooked you sad news. My sincerest condolences. Dementia if a vile beast.
@purofilion so sorry to hear your sad news. Dementia is so cruel.
I feel so very lucky to still have both my Mum and Dad with me – they both have had different scares/operations for cancer over the last few years but have (fingers crossed) come through it all. I know it cannot last forever, everyone knows that everyone dies and all that :(, but the scares and knowing other friends who have lost family makes me appreciate the time left even more and I try and embrace it as much as I can, A lot more than I used to do when I was younger.
@Blenkinsopthebrave Fantastic bonkers theory! Do we pay you? … we should give you a raise. 😉
(\(\;;/)/)
@purofilion – very sorry to hear of your loss. However expected, it’s always unexpected.
My thoughts are with you and the Ilion family.
@purofilion I too would like to add my condolences. I’m very sorry for your loss.
All of your individual Christmas stories on here make it seem like it is here already (although I haven’t bought any presents yet!). It has been quite moving reading all of your posts. This is already one of my favourite threads.
The comments may not be on topic, but they are very welcome and deserve to be here. Just look at what Doctor Who can do.
This is probably now the Christmas thread. I must start thinking about decorating my tree.