Let’s hear it for Scrooge (From The Northern Echo)

Let’s hear it for Scrooge

2:24pm Thursday 1st December 2011 in Mum At Large By Ruth Campbell

MY children started calling me Scrooge – just because I banned any mention of Christmas in our house until today.

And, bah humbug, who could blame me?

Nine-year-old Albert started asking how many sleeps it was until this Christmas on Boxing Day 2010.

“How many days is it now?” He asked me in the Easter holidays.

“How many hours?” he wondered during the summer months. When I told him I didn’t know, he thought about it: “Minutes then?”

He’s also been discussing, interminably, his Christmas present list, what Santa Claus eats for breakfast, how he gets bicycles down chimneys and if we can ask for a present for the cat.

And ever since, three weeks ago, he and his older brother discovered a website which tells you exactly how many hours, minutes and seconds it is until the big day, he has started waking me up every morning with a major announcement.

“It’s only six weeks, three days, 17 hours, three minutes and 47 seconds until Christmas!” he shouts at the top of his voice as he jumps in the air, arms outstretched.

Usually, I just bury my head deeper under the duvet, trying hard not to think about all the tortuous shopping, wrapping, posting and catering I will have to do.

But one morning recently, I cracked. I’d had enough. “From now on I am banning any mention of Christmas in this house until December 1, Albert. It will be so much more special if we enjoy the build-up closer to the time,” I told him.

He kept pushing it: “Just one more question? Please, I just want to know how he gets the whole way round the world in one night and do you think he’d bring me a terrapin?” he begged. I wasn’t giving in. “That’s it, mention the C-word one more time and the whole thing’s cancelled,” I snapped.

That’s when they started calling me Scrooge.

But then last Friday, against my better judgment, I relented. Santa was coming to switch on the Christmas lights in the market square – on November 25. It’s much too early, I thought. But, since it wasn’t going to happen the following week, we went along.

We waited for half an hour before Santa appeared on the town hall balcony and waved. Then he was supposed to come down and walk across the market square to a stage where there were various dignitaries with microphones.

But the moment Santa emerged from the building, he was surrounded by parents and children, who wanted to talk to him and have their pictures taken.

“Santa is making his way over to us, he’ll be here any minute,” announced the local radio DJ, who was on the stage.

But Santa, a lovely, kindly old man, was being mobbed. After half an hour he was still in the same spot, giving out sweets from his sack. As the crowd grew, some people were trying to jostle their way into the front. There was a bit of pushing and shoving.

“If you could all just move aside and let Santa make his way to the stage,” said the DJ. But no one was listening.

Albert got separated from us, just as a bit of a scuffle broke out. A man with a toddler in a buggy appeared enraged. “Can you all move aside and let me out,” he shouted, before running over a number of people’s feet with the pram.

Someone called him an idiot.

“Who just called me an idiot?” He shouted aggressively. Another woman started to complain about the sweet Santa had given her toddler.

I caught sight of Albert, whose foot had been run over. His eyes were welling up, his bottom lip was trembling.

“I got pushed. And that man scared me,” he said, as I steered him back towards our car.

I knew I had given in too soon. The spirit of Christmas? Bah, humbug.

THE 18-year-old, who has just gone off to university, is sharing halls of residence with students from all over the country.

While Charlie’s used to living in the middle of the countryside, some of them are city kids, who come across as quite savvy and street-wise.

The other day, one of the girls, from Essex, was on the phone to her mum in the kitchen: “You are not going to believe this, Mum. I am looking out of the window and there are two rabbits on the grass outside.

Honest. Yes, they’re moving. It’s amazing.”

When she came off the phone, she told Charlie: “She thought I was having her on.”

When Charlie told her rabbits regularly came into his garden at home, she was incredulous: “But I thought they was just pets!” she squealed.