Christmas' Past

There is a theory (famously endorsed in 'Families and how to survive them' by John Cleese) that people tend to marry a person who either is similar to someone important in their own background or who has attributes that were missing from such a person.
Sometimes I wonder if I (subconsciously) married Barney for his family.

Once upon a time, I was an only child of a fifty year old father and a twenty year old mother. I have mentioned these before (as one does).
And today, the last of the current family having gone home (Except for Great Grandad who is staying for New Year) I found myself remembering, dimly, long ago Christmases at home.
There was us, a neat and restrained nuclear family, and what seemed to me to be a large number of old old people. Dad, you see was the youngest of 5 and so when the Aunties and Uncles came, they came without children (all grown up and left home ) and while they had a good time by their lights, there was really no room in their festivities for a small person. Furthermore, they had all, without exception, disapproved of my father's marriage to a Roman Catholic. One young enough to be his daughter...a year younger even than his own daughter by his first marriage. Their disapproval was generally felt from the moment they arrived. In hopes of staying off the disapproval, I was endlessly warned in advance, not to misbehave, not to argue, not to be dirty, untidy or forgetful. I was not to play in the garden, I was not to play on the floor, I was not to make a mess, I was not to talk too much. I was to play the grown up card games and other games and I was to be polite and helpful. I was to be seen and not heard. I was not to go away to my room and read or make a mess for hours upon unending hours.

When they arrived they would pass judgement...she's very thin, does she eat enough. She talks a lot doesn't she, doesn't she do her own tidying? She's a sweet little girl but she's not very well behaved is she. What???? She gets pocket money? doesn't she have to earn it? Oh, you have to go to church. Well of course you Roman Catholics do have to go and worship idols don't you but surely she's too young to do all that?
No doubt there was comment too about the way my mother ran the household and about the way she behaved and about her weight and her clothes and her cooking.
My mother and I were the youngest people there, imprisoned children in our own home.

Yet, they were a kindly enough lot individually. I remember in later years that I was very fond of them and they all had ways of showing affection to a small, slightly foreign child. (Near enough foreign since they were strict methodists from a different era and my mother came from a Dutch family).
When my father died, my mother married her brother in law (her sister having died a year or two earlier) and suddenly we had quite different family. Much noisier, much younger (though by then of course we were much older) given to intellectual discussion and all very catholic. Much merry church going and drinking and enjoying books and music of a very different kind. (my father's family enjoyed music too but in a restrained and considering way).
This family I had never shared Christmases with before (I think this must have been a cruel deprivation for my mother) and it was a revelation .
This lot were critical and witty and a little scary but they were also intelligent, outgoing, confident and outspoken (not that my father' family weren't also intelligent and confident but oh so stuffy!). This lot were fun.

And a few years later I met and married Barney, showman, clown, bear, larger than life and full of uninhibited emotions and opinions. And my new family upped the noise stakes at Christmas to a new level :) Arguments, discussions, laughter, openly competitive, totally unrestrained in joyful enthusiasm and snaps of temper. No religious dogmatics whatsoever and plenty of healthy scepticism. Crammed into a tiny house, wreathed in steamy cooking smells, Christmas was like being tossed into a whirlpool and stirred with a giant wooden spoon. All that was required in this household was that you make sufficient noise to be heard and that you didn't make a fuss about yourself. And that you played monopoly at least once :) And it would be a mistake to admit to any kind of Tory political feeling!

Oddly enough, all three of these children married people who were restrained and reserved with a touch of cynicism (I'm not sure of the cynicism in the case of youngest's marriage but he made up with the reservedness).

Looking back I see that all the families had much in common. Music, books, high intelligence and wit, strong convictions and excellent education. Deep caring and a strong sense of duty. Strong egos and strong colourful characters in each group (remind me to tell you about the Aunties some day).
But it was the first family that made me what I am (yeah, yeah, I was a child, I did do my own thing too as children do, whatever strait jackets their families tie round them). Looking back I see a small, pale, quiet creature with a small insistent voice, happiest crouching in the garden over a tiny stream, carefully arranging toy animals into games of freedom and escape in a miniature landscape, building small dams and lakes. Slipping secretively sideways out from under the adults careful thumbs into another world. An always watchful eye out for the adult enemies. You wouldn't really recognise that child now. I've learnt from all my families how to make noise and how to blend quite successfully. And most of all I've learnt from our own children. (But that's another story).
The other day middle child said to me after a tale of some tangled family relationship, "it always amazes me that you turned out to be such a normal person Mum". Well the lesson there is something about 'normal' being quite unusual. We are all extraordinary. And so, 'extraordinary' is quite normal.