There’s no doubt that Honor takes after her old man in terms of never being afraid to call it.
“Why is Dad allowed to get shitfaced with his friends,” she goes, “and my brothers aren’t allowed to put on the story of the birth of Jesus?”
I’m like, “Er, I thought you were, like, an atheist?”
She goes, "I am an atheist. It's just they're having yet another milestone of childhood stolen from them by a bunch of, like, randomers?"
Yeah, no, Johnny was supposed to play the dude Himself – as in, like, the little bitty baby – and let’s just say there was nothing holy about his language when we told him that the gig was off.
I’m there, “I thought Willow Pork would have been exempted from the rules. What’s the point in sending your kids to Willow Pork if they’re not exempted from the rules?”
Sorcha goes, "No one is actually stopping them from putting on a Nativity play. The school decided to cancel the live event because it was the socially responsible thing to do."
The socially responsible thing to do? It’s no wonder Blackrock College aren’t producing the rugby teams they did in times past.
“Anyway,” Sorcha goes, “it’s going ahead on Zoom.”
“Zoom is focking shit,” Leo goes – yeah, no, he was supposed to be the angel, although – again – you’d never know it from the mouth on him.
Sorcha suddenly screams – as in, like, a proper horror movie scream? It turns out – oh my God – she's stood on a Christmas bauble in her bare feet. There's, like, blood everywhere and I race to the bathroom to grab her a towel.
While she’s busy picking shrapnel out of her foot, Honor makes a shocking discovery.
“Oh my God,” she goes, “the wifi is down!”
I’m there, “Can we use our phones to create, like, a hotspot?”
“No, it’s too unreliable for a Zoom call.”
“Fock this!” Brian goes. “I focking hate focking Christmas!”
Yeah, no, he's supposed to be narrating the story? I honestly don't know what Mrs Merriman was thinking when she cast the thing.
"Let's go to Fitzpatrick's Castle," Honor goes. "We can use their WiFi?"
There isn’t time for a debate – or to get her old dear medical attention. The play is storting in, like, 40 minutes, so the boys throw on their costumes, Sorcha wraps her still-bleeding foot in the towel and we all pile into the cor.
Ten seconds later, we discover a new problem. Some focker has porked their X5 in front of the entrance to Honalee, blocking us in?
“It must be someone in at Joy Felton’s porty,” Sorcha goes. “Or Andrea Shotton’s.”
I’m not one to point fingers, but – yeah, no – there are a lot of porties happening on the Vico Road tonight.
I’m there, “We’ll have to walk.”
Sorcha goes, “I can’t! Look at my foot!”
I have an idea then. I’m like, “What about the wheelchair that I arrived home with after Jamie Heaslip’s stag?”
Honor goes to get it while I throw the shearling blanket from the back seat of the cor around Sorcha’s shoulders to keep her warm.
Twenty minutes later – if you can picture the scene – I'm pushing my wife up Killiney Hill Road in a chair with a wobbly wheel, with Honor and the boys following behind, singing the big number from the show, we're talking, "Little donkey, little donkey, on the dusty road…"
We eventually reach Fitzpatrick’s and I push Sorcha up the ramp into the hotel.
“Dude,” I tell the – yeah, no – dude on reception, “we need to use your wifi.”
I can see immediately that he’s in two minds. We’re in, like, the hort of Killiney – you can imagine how many people come in here and rip the piss.
“Please,” Sorcha goes, “we’ve come a long way tonight. And my children are supposed to be in the Willow Pork Nativity play.”
Willow Pork. It’s like someone shouted, “Open sesame!”
“The password is Christmas21,” he goes.
I’m there, “Thank you!” because there’s, like, 10 minutes to go until the thing storts.
“Fock,” Honor goes, looking up from the laptop. “It won’t connect.”
The dude comes out from behind the reception desk to try to help us. He faffs around for a few minutes, then goes, “I think the problem is your computer.”
I’m like, “What the fock?” as my pint arrives – yeah, no, I thought it was only fair to order something if we were going to use their internet.
The dude who brings it – along with my double brandy – goes, “I know a bit about computers. Do you want me to look at it?”
Which the dude then does? But he can't find the problem either.
He goes, “I’ll ring Gorvan in the business centre.”
Two minutes later – we're talking literally five minutes before the show is about to stort – the famous Gorvan arrives. He taps a few keys, then he goes, "It's a virus."
The boys all burst into tears.
“The computer has COVID!” Johnny goes. “The computer has COVID!”
Honor’s there, “The computer doesn’t have Covid, Johnny.”
Seriously, that Tony focking Holohan has a lot to answer for.
“Can you fix it?” Sorcha goes. “My children are supposed to be in a Nativity play – it’s storting in, like, five minutes time. If we don’t manage to get online, I’m scared they’ll forget the real meaning of Christmas.”
“Pack! Of! Bullshit!” Leo – the so-called Angel Gabriel – goes.
Gorvan is like, “I can download some anti-virus software, but it’ll cost- ”
"We don't care what it costs," Sorcha goes – yeah, no, she definitely knows the true meaning of Christmas. "Ross, give him your credit cord."
So I hand over our plastic and Gorvan does his thing.
“You’re all connected,” he eventually goes – this is with, like, 60 seconds to go until the stort of the show.
Honor puts the laptop down on the table and the boys take up their positions. She clicks on the link and we’re suddenly looking at Mrs Merriman’s face – all lit up like Ronan’s house since about the first week in November.
“Oh, thank God!” she goes. “We have our narrator, our Angel Gabriel and our baby Jesus, everybody!”
The dude from reception goes, “Do you mind if we watch?” and him and the borman and Gorvan from the business centre sit down with us. Sorcha pulls the shearling blanket tight around her shoulders.
And Brian goes, “Once upon a time in the town of Bethlehem…”