Danskcolin

Yes, Friends, Christmas is undoubtedly for families - but not necessarily always in a good way, maybe?

Did you read today's "splash" on page 94 of the local Onion News for East Hampshire? Quite a "tear-jerker", isn't it !!!!!

Poor Sargent family !!!!!

And the story puts a bit of a smug smirk on the faces of me and my wife Lois in bed this morning, when we read it in the paper's print edition, that's for sure!!!

my wife Lois and me - a recent picture

And yes, we've got a right to be smug, because the Sargent family's worries are not something we need to get anxious about in the case of our daughter Alison and family, who are visiting today for a pre-Christmas Sunday "tea" tonight - it'll be all smiles from our viewpoint, although whether they say the same thing about us, their "naughty" Granny and Poppa, will remain to be seen!!!!

Meanwhile, we foresee a busy day for us both, preparing for Alison and family's visit - hoovering, setting the table for 7, preparing the meal etc, not to mention all our other duties as well: Lois's church's Sunday Morning Meeting, plus our commitment to finishing the puzzles in the back of the Radio Times, to show the family that we're not quite senile yet - that's our story, and we're sticking to it haha!!!!

Just look at these pictures of our incredibly busy day - look, and weep haha !!!!! And see how many of these quiz questions YOU can get right haha!!!

[That's enough laughter haha! - Ed]

we brave the cold in the inadequately heated Village Hall near Petersfield

for Lois's church's Sunday Morning Meeting - brrrrr!!!!

we cone home and warm up with the puzzles at the back of this week's Radio Times

- how many questions can YOU answer haha !!!!!!

And we're fascinated, also, further down on the magazine's iconic "Quiz Page", to learn some useful words from Susie Dent's "Dictionary Corner" this week, which is nice!

Bet you've got some "Yule-shards" at YOUR workplace - people who leave work unfinished ahead of the Christmas break - am I right? Or am I right!!!!

And Lois and I are certainly already taking advantage of our respective Yule-holes, as our diets are starting to get forgotten, and with a calorie intake that's increasing exponentially as the holiday season takes its toll on our waistlines, that's for sure!!!!

Witness our meal tonight, with our daughter Alison, husband Ed and their 3 teenage kids:

(left to right) our daughter Alison, Rosalind (17), Isaac (15), Lois,

Josie (19), Edward and me, gathered tonight for a pre-Christmas "tea"

A big to biggish meal, yes, but at least "camel" isn't on the menu, which is some relief! When the table talk turns to recipes, we find a camel recipe when we take a nostalgic look through Alison's old elementary school PTA recipe book from 1981. At the time, Alison was attending Dasher Green Elementary school in Columbia, Maryland, USA, during our family's three years in the States 1982-1985.

How we laughed !!!!

And here, in case you've got a spare camel in YOUR fridge or freezer at the moment, here's the relevant recipe on page 2, contributed by a kid called Cathy Walker - no relation !!!!

Yikes! On balance, however, I think Lois and I would prefer to "pass" on that one, Cathy, if you don't mind !!!!!

flashback to October 1984, as Lois and I embarked on our final

12 months in America, touring the Blue Ridge Mountains

of Virginia, with daughters Alison (9) and Sarah (7)

- happy times!!!!

19:00 Our guests depart to their home to nearby Churt, just over the county line in Surrey, to feed their menagerie of pets: two dogs, two cats and a bunch of tropical fish. What madness, isn't it !!!!!

With the house to ourselves again, Lois and I collapse in a heap on the sofa and watch a bit of yuletide "telly" before collapsing into bed. Well, we are both 79, even though we're unquestionably "both very marvellous for our age" (!!!). [I'll be the judge of that! - Ed].

Flashback to Christmas of 25 years ago - for Lois and me, our first Christmas in the UK for three years.

Presenter Grace Dent sets the scene by reminding us about how the world was in Christmas 1985.

And for some reason, Grace doesn't mention that "Colin and family were having their first Christmas back in the UK for 3 years", which is a bit of a glaring oversight, in mine and Lois's "humble" opinions!!!!

Grace's nostalgic and heart-warming programme reminds Lois and me how rude TV used to be, 25 years ago, before the era of "woke" and "PC" - my goodness, yes! Take the BBC's gardening correspondent Alan Titchmarsh with this saucy "Christmas 1985 Gardening Wrap-Up2, during the BBC's Breakfast Time's 1985 Christmas pantomime, a "mash-up" of Jack and the Beanstalk and Cinderella.

That was those naughty 1980's for you in a "bean-pod", wasn't it - no pun intended !!!!!

But fast forward, however, now to Tony Blair's Britain of the new millennium, and here's Victoria Wood's "take" on the crisis in the economy of Northern England, when cheap Chinese imports were starting to throw Yorkshire traditional "fettlers" out of work and thereby threatening the very existence of the village's traditional Fettlers' Brass Band.

The following clip is from the BBC's then shiny-new "BBC Upmarket" TV channel, excerpts from what Victoria calls the year's big film, "Brassed Up"

Little do the most of the band know, however, in Tony Blair's Brave New Britain, quite the extent of the magnitude of the danger now threatening the very existence of the band.

But is the band downhearted? No! This is Yorkshire, remember! And the lads are determined to make a final stand, with a gloriously tear-jerking brass band hymn: