Christmas carols, mistletoe and wine
Hartlepool Male Voice Choir Christmas concert at the Borough Hall, my second one, went very well last Friday, judging from the audience comments. I felt a lot more relaxed than a year ago, even if someone told me that I looked very serious. Just like all the members of the choir, I have to concentrate on the expert directions of our musical director, David Gibson. None of us dares to look away from his dancing hands which keep us on track. To lighten the atmosphere, four committee members dressed as the Village People sang “YMCA” with audience participation. Early in the new year, we will begin learning songs for the Choir’s sixtieth anniversary in June, when Joe McElderry will be our special guest.
Seasons in the sun.
Before Algeria gained its independence from France in 1962, towns and villages rang to the sounds of Noël and festive patisserie windows were filled with Yule logs. Charcoal burners filled our main square with aromatic smoke from roasting chestnuts.
At nursery and primary school, we sang French Christmas carols and often enjoyed a slice of “gâteau des rois”.
While a few well-to-do Algerians celebrated a “non-religious” Christmas in their homes and showered their children with the latest toys, the Muslim majority went about the 25th December like it was just another day.
The one and only Christmas present I ever got as a kid, a red trolleybus, was given to me by my aunt and her doctor husband, who often helped my mother out while my father was in some Saharan concentration camp during the war of liberation against the French.
My first UK Christmas.
I spent it in Sunderland in 1976, where I was studying Naval Architecture. Despite the festive decorations, the multitudes of shoppers frantically fighting their way through endless queues and evening parties of revellers dressed in Santa suits, I had no idea that it was such an important time of year as I found out over the years.
I was pleasantly surprised when the owners of the corner shop I regularly used, kindly invited me for Christmas lunch. I immediately accepted their generous invitation as I was very keen to learn all about British traditions.
On arrival, the hosts wished me a Merry Christmas with a large glass of sweet Sherry. The alcohol gave me enough Dutch courage to chomp my way through a very bland turkey dinner served with overcooked vegetables, wallpaper-paste gravy and finished with a strange warm dark dessert covered in a creamy sauce laced with brandy. A litre bottle of Blue Nun helped digest the dinner, including a vegetable I had never seen before. Mini cabbages called Brussels sprouts which, years later I grew to love.
Later after coffee, their daughter, a very shy thirtysomething, university graduate, invited me up to her room to listen to records. We exchanged trivialities about our respective countries, likes and dislikes, etc… We were having harmless fun until she suddenly grabbed my hand, gazed into my eyes through her jam-jar-bottomed spectacles and said: “I like you.”
After recovering from the shock, I mumbled some lame excuse that I needed to finish my homework and, forgetting the box of chocolates she had given me as a present, I quickly retreated to my bedsit a few doors away. If anything at all, I was truly impressed that my neighbours were the living example of Northern hospitality I have been experiencing over the last 43 years.
A couple of years later, Karen introduced me to my first real Christmas in the council house we shared in Easington Village. She decorated the house from top to bottom and lovingly wrapped mountains of presents, which she piled under the beautifully-adorned tree.
I was conveniently put in charge of the cooking and have since then, prepared most of our Christmas dinners.
Over the years, I experimented with alternative offerings, such as a homemade five-birds-in-one which received mixed reviews. A great idea of having a tapas buffet was given a try and immediately scrapped in favour of a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings and the obligatory seventeen or eighteen vegetables.
Often, unable to really enjoy the food I cooked, having slaved for hours in a steamy kitchen, I just ended up nibbling on a few morsels and later snoring through the Queen’s speech while the rest of the family enjoyed my alcoholic brandy sauce on their pudding.
Nowadays, after many ingenious tweaks, I make sure the bulk of the dinner is prepared on Christmas Eve, leaving me to leisurely perform the finishing touches on the day.