Terrible songs and tropical fruit: It must be Christmas

 

I was standing in line in Aldi today, surrounded by trolleys of sprouts and potatoes, parsnips and chocolate.

 

A man in front of me gestured to a pack of cellophane wrapped dates and asked his wife in a tone of puzzlement whether she liked dates. You’ve got to have dates at Christmas she said. He nodded quietly as he took in this new information.

 

Dates at Christmas are one of those food traditions that fall under the radar at Christmas. A bit like gravity - we don’t think about it but we’d notice if it was gone. Kind of like the pineapple I have sitting on my kitchen counter awaiting Christmas.

 

Will the pineapple be ripe or rotten come Christmas day? Will anyone even want pineapple? I don’t know. I bought it because my mother always bought a pineapple at Christmas, as did her mother before her...

 

Terrible Singing and Awful Songs

 

The youngest had a Christmas concert at her preschool on the last day of school. Nineteen three and four-year-olds stood in straggly line in their Christmas jumpers (except mine, I had forgotten the Christmas jumper memo) and sang about Santa and reindeers, wiggling their fingers like snowflakes and picking their noses. It was lovely.

 

A sea of technology - camera, phone, tablet - captured every captivating second of high-pitched squawking choruses and barely audible mumbled verses. Why do children’s Christmas concerts give me a lump in the throat? Nostalgia? Joy and hope? Seasonal sentimentality?

 

Whatever the case I remain unapologetic for almost tearing up when Mary and Joseph lead the wise men into a rousing rendition of Frosty the Snowman.

 

Christmas is weird and wonderful, it combines carol songs with Indiana Jones, Father Christmas with Baby Jesus, stress, expectation, disappointment, fun, relaxation with too much food.

 

I wouldn’t change a thing.

 

Daisy Wilson is a freelance writer who lives and works in West Cork. Mum to an almost-teenager and a toddler who is striding through the terrible twos with a glint in her eye, life is noisy, fun and covered in fingerprint marks.