Xmas with my lot

The thing about spending the Winterval with my family is that...  it works.  The thing with big families is we pull together, roll up our sleeves and build the thing.  The younger ones bake, Diane and I hang things, then discuss the way I've hung them.  Mam used to do all the cooking and the cleaning when we were younger; it was our day off, and she's always been very much the Matriarch of the Sept.  These days she's a lot less able, so increasingly me and Diane do the bulk of the work.

You mustn't take me for grumbling, far from it!  We've never had much money; but we've a roof over our heads, we don't owe nobody nowt, the house is warm and dry, we don't lack for food or love.  We're rich where it counts.

Some people have Christmas catered, or eat out, or book into a hotel.  If that suits them then fair enough, but I'd hate it.  We cook our food to our taste, and spare no effort.  There's enough of us to spread the work  thin, but feeding your family is a labour of love on the most average of days.

I haven't said blessings in a lot of years, being more of a lapsed Catholic these days, and I don't really have a deity these days to be thankful to, but I'm thankful.

The motto of the Glencoe mob is contentious.  Officially we haven't had one since the clearances.  We lost that and our arms, and can only use those of Clan Donald.  Unofficially, however, it is Nec Tempore, Nec Fato, or "there is no time, there is no fate".  This is true enough.  Time and fate grant no boons, elbow grease does.  They don't take either, people do.  It all comes back to the lives you touch, and those that touch yours, for good or ill.

So I'm thankful to my family.  For them, yes, but also to them.  This day is nice because we make it nice.  Family life works because we make it work.  There's nothing in life worth anything that you don't build with your own hands, and I'm grateful to have such wonderful colleagues in this project I call existence.

Right, cider.  I leave you with the Muppets: