The bulk of the festive season has come and gone, with all the madness that it brings, and before I head off to the States, here’s a brief run-down.
In our family we’ve developed something of a tradition of having a much smaller, quiet dinner with just the immediate family unit on Christmas Eve. This originally started because my mum would be working on Christmas Day itself, but has stuck. Lots of wine, lots of chatting and lots of food to prepare us for the next day.
This year we opted for a bit of a change from the usual Christmas fare, instead deciding on a cheese fondue instead. For those of you that aren’t familiar with it, it’s basically a whole load of melted Swiss cheese with a grand helping of wine. Something of an acquired taste perhaps.
After that, I headed on to the next stage in the traditional Christmas Eve: A trip down the local pub (Kirkie Puffer), where everyone really does know your name. No matter how far flung or distant they are, Kirkintilloch is the sort of place that people end up coming back to at this time of year, and it’s a bit of a pleasant way to see faces that you know… even if you can’t exactly remember who or when or how or whatever else. Needless to say, it was packed:
Not sure that scene quite meets fire regulations, but hey… it’s Christmas.
This guy below is one prime example. He went to my Primary School, and to this day I know him only as ‘cubicle guy’, because we both seemed to end up in the toilets at the same time. Typing this, I realise just how awful that sounds, and so I am going to move swiftly on.
Oh yeah, Christmas Eve wouldn’t be Christmas Eve without Haigie ordering some stupidly expensive bottle of champagne and drinking it all himself.
Or Jackie returning for the one time I see her per year.
and now?
After realising that the train operators had canned all of the service provided after 20 past 8 at night, I was unable to make the traditional rail journey into town, and instead had to get a taxi to the Cathouse to see good old drunken Santa Claus and his Buckfast.
Christmas Eve was a shambolic affair, as all of the staff take the opportunity to get completely flattened in the name of festive cheer. Some guy put a penny in my pint of quadruple Jack and Coke and thought that he would call my bluff by telling me to down it in an attempt to impress some ladies I was chatting to.
Sadly he was mistaken, and I left victorious, although did end up on the floor later on. (Pictures of this are not appearing here… sorry. You’ve seen enough of that sort of thing.)
Some bugger stole my awesome pointy Santa hat too.
The only thing left to do after such a night is…
Get some more food of course! This guy was awesome. He played Rammstein and American Head Charge and when he realised that we knew who they were he blasted it out. Not sure the other patrons were too impressed, but who cares.
The focus on this may also not be perfect, but a manual focus lens in this state was a fine challenge indeed, as I’m sure you can appreciate.
and last, but by no means least is the visit from my Aunts and Gran on Boxing Day. Cue curry, lots more wine and some outrageous tales. I realise that I am overlooking Christmas Day completely, but I felt a bit absent during the whole thing, so it’s probably best it remains that way here too.
and so onward and upward. I have to get up in 3 hours to head over to Edinburgh for the marathon journey to London, then Dallas, then Alabama, so I will leave you all with New Year to look forward to.