Everywhere you look - particularly at this time of year - we're surrounded by aspiration. Glossy magazine covers flaunt their wares with tantalising catchlines, implying that you too could look this good if only you'd remembered to marry a banker/manage a hedge fund. Newspaper articles list handy guides to what you should buy your loved ones (or what you should covet....) TV adverts portray people (let's be more accurate here, it's always the women) efficiently ticking off their Christmas present shopping list and getting a buy-one-get-one-free into the bargain.
There have been days this month, in the run up to the big X, when I got sucked into all this and utterly overspent. Then felt conned. Cue row with my beloved (this is not verbatim): "How come we're overdrawn? It's not even Christmas yet.."
"Because, for once, I've been super-efficient and bought nearly everyone's gifts already. What do you think we should give your Mum?"
"Couldn't you have kept an eye on our statement and tranferred money across from our savings?"
"Maybe we should communicate better on what we're both spending....like those football tickets you bought. Better still, you do the Christmas shopping!" *SMUG AURA VANISHES - STOMP OFF IN HUFF*
But we forget that this is meant to be all about giving. Refreshingly, my kids' letter to Santa this year was fairly modest. But yesterday, the eight-year-old asked "just" for an iPad! Just! He meant he'd forego lots of little presents for one big one & had no idea what £450 meant, relatively.
Which is why this website caught my eye. It's about an organisation based in Oxford where members commit to giving away 10 per cent of their income. I have nothing to do with them so this is no plug. Not many of us are Gates-like philanthropists who can afford to give away 10 per cent of our income, especially on the day, it's just been announced, unemployment has risen to 2.5 million in the UK.
But today, too, the World Bank's development fund has said it will cost 49.3 billion dollars (37 billion euros) to provide loans to poor nations during its 2011-2014 campaign. So there's a bigger need out there. Without being holier than thou, to learn that we could all be more efficient with giving by choosing a charity that is better run or that is involved with work that saves more lives intrigues me.
Take a look and happy - row free! - Christmas to one and all.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Saturday, December 4, 2010
BMB - A CHRISTMAS CAROL
This post was written in response to a thread suggested by British Mummy Bloggers #BMB
A TROPICAL CHRISTMAS PAST
My most memorable Christmas was spent on the islands of Vanuatu as a teenager. Never heard of it? I hadn't either. But my dad worked at the agricultural college there for a couple of years in Port Vila, the capital. I say that glibly but acknowledge how fortunate we were to have had that experience. Swimming, sunbathing, learning to scuba dive on Hideaway Island, barbecues on the beach and giggling at some of the Pidgin English phrases we'd learnt. Having previously been based in sub-Saharan northern Nigeria for five years, while we four daughters did the boarding school thing, the change of scene was doubly welcome. It was hot, humid, prone to cyclones and earth tremors and a long, long way away!
As a 17-year-old supposedly studying for my A Levels in between all that sun and sea, I travelled out there with my two younger sisters via Dubai or Singapore, then Sydney, sometimes Brisbane, Noumea and then a tiny 'elastic band' style plane to Port Vila. We wiled away the minutes waiting for our connecting flights by racing up and down the travelators (I'm sure fellow passengers were impressed!) or spending our pocket money on Duty Free goodies like M & Ms - which you couldn't get in the UK at the time. Once we finally got there, ignorant about the likes of DVT, the heat hit us in the face like a sauna and the jet lag was something else!
This particular year, my dad was given a suckling pig by some of his colleagues so that we could celebrate it traditional Ni-Vanuatu style. We dug a pit in the very fertile soil (you pick up these details when your dad's a tropical agriculture nerd!), tossed in some stones and lit a fire on top of them. While that was taking hold, my mum prepared the meat. A great cook with a well-thumbed Mrs Beeton tome, I don't think she found a recipe for this, but someone at the Corona women's society (like the W.I.) probably gave her the heads up. She sprinkled salt on the outside of the pork and stuffed it with apricots and prunes to give it a tropical flavour, then wrapped it in banana leaves. The bundle was balanced on top of the hot stones and covered in soil to trap the heat like an underground barbecue. Then the big wait began.....
It secretly simmered for hours as it was too hot to eat a big meal in the middle of the day anyway. I remember prancing around excitedly in my t-shirt night dress for ages and then we busied ourselves unwrapping presents, ringing the grandparents and my older sister back home to share festive greetings and trying to figure out what time we had to tune in to the World Service for the Queen's Speech. Of course, we nagged Mum constantly, "Is it ready? Is it ready?" and dad would go over and prod it with the gardening fork and look like he knew what he was doing! Then, finally, the moment came. We could see if it had worked. What if it was inedible? The soil might have got into the package or maybe it was still raw. The dangers of salmonella! Whose idea was it to put prunes, of all things, inside it anyway?
Well, it was the most tender meat I've ever tasted and, prunes aside (literally, on my plate anyway!), it was a good job we liked it because there was so much left over it almost filled the freezer. And somehow, a traditional turkey wouldn't have worked in those sunny climes without snow and carols, sherry and mince pies. Our secretly simmered suckling pig was super special. And I think that's what Christmas is about. Not getting your family and friends exactly what they want as presents but making memories. From the sentimental Christmas tree decorations your kids have crafted to the carefully chosen crackers (we've gone for posh London ones this year) and table decorations, it's about setting the scene for the anticipation of something special. Then waiting and waiting until, finally, the big moment arrives. Merry Christmas fellow bloggers!
A TROPICAL CHRISTMAS PAST
My most memorable Christmas was spent on the islands of Vanuatu as a teenager. Never heard of it? I hadn't either. But my dad worked at the agricultural college there for a couple of years in Port Vila, the capital. I say that glibly but acknowledge how fortunate we were to have had that experience. Swimming, sunbathing, learning to scuba dive on Hideaway Island, barbecues on the beach and giggling at some of the Pidgin English phrases we'd learnt. Having previously been based in sub-Saharan northern Nigeria for five years, while we four daughters did the boarding school thing, the change of scene was doubly welcome. It was hot, humid, prone to cyclones and earth tremors and a long, long way away!
As a 17-year-old supposedly studying for my A Levels in between all that sun and sea, I travelled out there with my two younger sisters via Dubai or Singapore, then Sydney, sometimes Brisbane, Noumea and then a tiny 'elastic band' style plane to Port Vila. We wiled away the minutes waiting for our connecting flights by racing up and down the travelators (I'm sure fellow passengers were impressed!) or spending our pocket money on Duty Free goodies like M & Ms - which you couldn't get in the UK at the time. Once we finally got there, ignorant about the likes of DVT, the heat hit us in the face like a sauna and the jet lag was something else!
This particular year, my dad was given a suckling pig by some of his colleagues so that we could celebrate it traditional Ni-Vanuatu style. We dug a pit in the very fertile soil (you pick up these details when your dad's a tropical agriculture nerd!), tossed in some stones and lit a fire on top of them. While that was taking hold, my mum prepared the meat. A great cook with a well-thumbed Mrs Beeton tome, I don't think she found a recipe for this, but someone at the Corona women's society (like the W.I.) probably gave her the heads up. She sprinkled salt on the outside of the pork and stuffed it with apricots and prunes to give it a tropical flavour, then wrapped it in banana leaves. The bundle was balanced on top of the hot stones and covered in soil to trap the heat like an underground barbecue. Then the big wait began.....
It secretly simmered for hours as it was too hot to eat a big meal in the middle of the day anyway. I remember prancing around excitedly in my t-shirt night dress for ages and then we busied ourselves unwrapping presents, ringing the grandparents and my older sister back home to share festive greetings and trying to figure out what time we had to tune in to the World Service for the Queen's Speech. Of course, we nagged Mum constantly, "Is it ready? Is it ready?" and dad would go over and prod it with the gardening fork and look like he knew what he was doing! Then, finally, the moment came. We could see if it had worked. What if it was inedible? The soil might have got into the package or maybe it was still raw. The dangers of salmonella! Whose idea was it to put prunes, of all things, inside it anyway?
Well, it was the most tender meat I've ever tasted and, prunes aside (literally, on my plate anyway!), it was a good job we liked it because there was so much left over it almost filled the freezer. And somehow, a traditional turkey wouldn't have worked in those sunny climes without snow and carols, sherry and mince pies. Our secretly simmered suckling pig was super special. And I think that's what Christmas is about. Not getting your family and friends exactly what they want as presents but making memories. From the sentimental Christmas tree decorations your kids have crafted to the carefully chosen crackers (we've gone for posh London ones this year) and table decorations, it's about setting the scene for the anticipation of something special. Then waiting and waiting until, finally, the big moment arrives. Merry Christmas fellow bloggers!
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