Glumphoboo!

Christmas 2007

Grainne and Isabel say they like best the journal entries where I appear to be drunk. At least, I think that's what they said: I was prancing about in my dear earmuffs, being in love with them (meaning both the earmuffs and Grainne and Isabel) and Dublin and the night. I enjoyed having the following exhange outside Whelans:

Young, handsome, slightly inebriated, man: Hey! You're wearing earmuffs!  

Me: What? I can't hear you, I'm wearing earmuffs!

Y.h.s.i. man: I said you're wearing earmuffs!

Me: What? I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I'm wearing earmuffs!

Y.h.s.i. man: I SAID you're wearing earmuffs!

Me: I'm terribly sorry, I honestly can't hear you, I'm wearing earmuffs!

Ho, ho, ho, with apologies to Zig and Zag.

Before rawking out in Whelan's (though only a little bit - it was the first time I've ever gone to Whelan's and not been injured) there was a Christmas party at Anne's house. Aaaaaaaaaagh I've been desperate for Christmas and here it was by the bucket! Which means mulled wine by the bucket, ladled out tirelessly by Anne who was utterly the hostess in her green dress and pearls. The Christmas tree was very symmetrically decorated, nod to Isabel, and o there was tinsel and glitter and Christmas spirit dripping from every angle of the room. In a corner Tracy sat in a glamorous red dress, on Santa's knee, and when the doorbell rang for more guests I heard sleighbells. At last, at last! You might be waiting your whole life in Cambridge for Christmas to arrive with a bang and never know it had landed in Dublin days ago. On the way to the party Dad drove me past a house covered in flashing lights and nodding snowmen. And at home Mum lampooned the unfortunate journalist who had suggested in the Irish Times that you could colour co-ordinate your Christmas decorations to each minimalist room, and keep them sophisticated by allocating a small space in the kitchen to the lovingly crayoned decorations brought home, freshly made, from school.

I'm in Dublin for a few days, did I mention, because I'm graduating (a year late - don't ask) on Monday. And I've fallen in love with the dirty little city all over again since seeing the Christmas chandeliers dangling over Grafton street. We're daft here, the lot of us, but we know how to do Christmas. You do it with love and with raucous laughter and with whiskey in your mulled wine and with your earmuffs too big for your head and hurrah! without style.