It's a Dad's Life:This week is like an ante-chamber between the years. Nothing happens in this period, apart from coming to terms with the fact that the world has not stopped spinning, that all the work you postponed in order to slink away on December 21st is still sitting on your desk with a smug grin on its face, and you are within touching distance of a credit card statement that will put you on an economic par with Iraq. This week is about acceptance of reality in the face of the annual shattering delusion that is Christmas.
The elder doesn't want to go back to school and the younger has developed an aversion to creche. Their speech is peppered with "I don't want to" - hardly surprising considering they've been getting whatever they want for two weeks now. I don't want to do anything either, just continue to gorge on
turkey and pudding sandwiches with a drizzle of gravy washed down by a half bottle of port.
It's at this time every year, on the cusp of returning to normality, that the concept of normality seems so sinfully abnormal.
Working all day long to fund the maintenance of your working all day long, so that every six months or so you can have an interlude and reach for a prolonged period of intimacy with the aforementioned sherry bottle. The Christmas madness is madness only because it has to end. I say rise up and buck the system. Put down your briefcases and Blackberries, leave aside your portfolios and study notes and embrace the culture of Christmas.
Every week do nothing but plan for one huge meal on Sunday, spend everything you have on gifts for people you vaguely know, wash Rennies down with bourbon and attempt to snog everyone who comes within a mile of your grubby, drunken radius. It's an anarchist's fantasy, with St Nick at the helm driving all economic balance into the gutter in the name of massive personal debt and a desire to live in perpetual good cheer.
Resolutions anyone? How about resolving to get fatter, poorer and re-addicted to the smokes? How about swearing to be a worse father and husband, attempting to become even more socially inept and taking less time to make people feel understood? How about not bothering? Where did we
pick up this birch rod to determine to improve ourselves right at the end of our most indulgent part of the year, and who slipped it into our hands?
Even the weather changes in early January. All through December the cold seems a friendly addition to the festivities, as if it is there only to punctuate the warmth you feel as you cross each threshold. The darkness is deep and welcoming, the stars glisten and the low sun beams down with long, flirtatious lashes. Then, bang, January hits and the cold is in your bones.
Your lips, so moistened with mistletoe mischief, are chapped raw and gnawed to the pink. The sun doesn't even pretend to rise any more and the nights swoop quickly down the chimneys leaving every fire struggling to rise above a glow. Let's face it, January is miserable, made even more so by the knowledge that it's going to get worse in February. No, the kids have got it right. I don't want to do anything, I don't
want to get back to normal. Normal can sling its stinking hook.
But before I can even raise a rallying call to pack our bags and move to Lapland, I recognise the futility of my wishes. Who are we to stand in the face of Visa and Mastercard? Onward worker ants, back into your call centres and warehouses. Start putting the pennies away through these few cold months for next season's blowout. Oh, it's good to be back.
