December 21st, 2009 | 
Author: Weird things happen around the holidays, often unexpected and not always pleasant.
I don’t know what got me on the subject in my head, I was thinking about duck and before I knew it, my crazy brain started remembering weird shit from my childhood.
The duck connection: I am cooking a small three-bird roast for xmas dinner.
For those of you who’ve never heard of such a concoction, it is quite simply, a whole boneless duck, stuffed with a whole boneless turkey, then inside the turkey is an entire, boneless pheasant. Larger versions start with a goose, but I’m not serving enough people to make that sensible.
I’m not sure how the farmers get the birds to grow inside the other birds without bones, but getting the feathers off must be a bitch. I guess it has to do with genetic engineering, by I digress. I want to talk about duck.
When I was very young, an elderly relative lived with us for many years, my Aunt Gertie, short for Gertrude. She lived to be 95, died in the mid 1970s and was part of the foster family that raised my orphaned father.
Yeah, I know, get out the violins.
Aunt Gertie lived in our house for four or five years, until her personal care became too much for my mother. Up to that point, her presence meant we didn’t do very much outside of the house, as she needed fairly constant supervision, even more so when she started falling down frequently.
After my parents took the difficult decision to place Aunt Gertie into a rest home, things changed for us and we had some freedom again. The very first night she was gone, my father took the family out to a fancy restaurant for dinner. This would have been around autumn 1972, so I would have been nearly 9 years old.
Now, here’s the fowl connection, that night in the nice restaurant, I ordered Duck l’Orange for the first time in my life and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever eaten. It was a half duck, still on the bone and the wait staff actually helped me strip the delicious meat from the bone.
Its a fairly vivid memory, and I can still remember the four of us, me, my parents and my younger brother all feeling slightly guilty that we were able to enjoy such a fine meal, only because Gertie was in a care home.
Aunt Gertie lived for several years in that care home, slowly, gradually losing her mind. Up to that point, she was scarily sharp and didn’t miss anything and it was only in the last year or two that she started to become confused about things. She passed away just a couple of weeks before xmas, at the same time my half-brother’s wife was delivering her first child in the same hospital.
The last time I saw Gertie in the hospital was about 10 minutes before I saw my nephew for the first time. Even at the age of nearly twelve, I realised there was a weird connection between new life and death.
Gertie died the next day, two weeks before xmas.
But that wasn’t the only death to darken a family xmas, a year or two before, my father’s foster brother, my Uncle Jack, died unexpectedly on xmas. I was probably around 10 years old.
I always liked Uncle Jack, he was very much an outdoorsman, he liked to fish and hunt, which are the sort of cool things that impress a young lad like me. He died on xmas eve, my father woke up to the news on xmas day.
Again, I have vivid memories of that morning. My brother and I burst downstairs, ready to attack a pile of presents left by santa, with enthusiasm, but our mother’s face told a different story.
We both immediately knew something was wrong before she told us about Uncle Jack. She explained how upset my father was, he had not come out of their bedroom yet. I’m sure it was silly early in the morning, my brother and I were both children and probably didn’t sleep a wink the night before.
It was one of the few times I saw my father with real tears in his eyes. He was a strong, imposing man, think Hemmingway without the booze and it shocked me. My dad wasn’t supposed to cry, ever!
It was a very low key xmas that year.
All of this is reminding me of the scene in the movie Gremlins, when Phoebe Cates character explains why she hates xmas and tells the story of her father dressing up like santa and getting caught in the chimney. They find him still there, dead, a couple weeks later. Talk about a holiday downer, I bet the stench would put you off your dinner.
Last xmas was easily one of the worst of my life, my beloved mother passed away unexpectedly.
I was at work, ready for a long holiday run of nightshifts when I got the bad news. I found out at 6am on xmas eve that she died.
The thing about deaths around the holidays is that it doesn’t just bring down the relatives of the deceased, it has an effect on those around you too. It distracts others away from their enjoyment of the season. My sudden, grieving absence from work had an impact on many people and that upset me even more.
Last year’s xmas was very depressing. That’s an understatement, it was devastating. You get the idea.
When you sit down for your big turkey (or 3 bird roast!) dinner on xmas day, spare a thought for all the people whose holidays have been blighted by unexpected bad news and whose future holidays may be coloured by these events.
More importantly, I sincerely hope its not you and yours who is the recipient of anything untoward. However, if it is you who draws the short draw and catches something unpleasant, know that you’re not alone, it can happen to anyone.
And if it is your turn, just remember that it will get better and I hope you have plenty more festive seasons awaiting you that might in some ways, make up for it.
From everyone here at the northlondonhippy, we wish you nothing but the very best of the holidays.
Oh wait, its just me here on my own, but the sentiment very much remains the same!
