The other C-word

Christmas. Plucked free from the festive demands of the Hotel/Pub industry, I feel more festive now than I have felt since I was about 6 years old. It is a traditional moan that 'Christmas gets earlier and earlier each year'. I used to feel that way, but, to me, it did not seem to be the case this year. Whether it is a result of the Credit Crunch, or me just wandering around with blinkers, Christmas didn't seem to get going until late November this year; whereas, in previous years, television adverts and supermarket promotions have caused me to be sick of the season before October has started.
It is Christmas Eve, a day I usually find myself behaving like a pinball, frantically trying to do all the things I should have done a month earlier. This year however, all is peace and calm. Cards have all been sent, presents have been bought AND wrapped. I have even completed all the food shopping, with the exception of one red chilli (which is just to decorate Rachel's monkfish in coconut, lime and ginger, so I can do without it). In fact, it feels wrong being (relatively) organised. I have three 2-hour lessons to give today and then.... that's it. Finished (at least until Sunday, when I am off to Ullapool for two days of lessons).
Jane and I are wrestling with a moral dilemma: Do we put Gary Glitter's Rock and Roll Christmas on the Christmas playlist? When I was 15 years old, my friend, Bearde, and I went to see Gary Glitter at Friars, Aylesbury. As far as we were concerned, he was a ridiculous, fat, old has-been (it’s funny how we considered him really old when Debbie Harry, who we considered a goddess, was only a year younger). But, it was the festive season, we both liked Leader of the Gang and Rock and Roll Pt2, it was Bearde’s birthday and we thought going to laugh at an old has-been would be a good night out. We were wrong. It wasn’t a good night out, it was a great night out. His energy, his costumes, his ability to get the whole crowd singing and dancing along, his general showmanship were all spectacular. We were so impressed we went to see him on several occasions after that. A few years later, another of my friends, Gog (Andy Gogan) married Gary Glitter’s daughter and, for years, my claim to fame was that Gary Glitter’s grand-daughter once puked on my shoulder as I held her. Anyway, I digress. Mr. Glitter has now been convicted of being a sad old perv. But, what Jane and I have discussed is whether playing Gary Glitter’s Rock and Roll Christmas suggests that we condone paedophilia. I think the sensible answer is ‘of course it doesn’t’, so we can put it on tomorrow’s playlist. After all, people are quite happy to play Jerry Lee Lewis records.

The other day Jane and I went, with Maggie, Rachel, Jamie, Anna and all three grandchildren, Jordan, Charlie and Carmen, to see Santa. He was on the Santa Special steam train which runs through the Cairngorms, from Aviemore to Boat of Garten. The snow may be causing havoc across the whole country at the moment but, when you are choo-chooing through a crisp white landscape, with fat snowflakes falling thick outside and your grandchildren agog at Father Christmas handing them presents, while we sip mulled wine… I would defy anyone not to feel Christmassy.
We are all off to Nairn beach tonight to send lanterns soaring into the night sky. The temperature is varying between -2 and -12C today, so we shall ensure we have plenty of mulled cider on the hob when we return.

I will be back, after Christmas, to bore you with more tales of being a driving instructor in the Highlands. Meanwhile, I wish you the merriest of festive seasons.