I just did my final trawl for goodies. Signor Bassich had a breathtaking display on his stall including some beautiful little midnight blue lobsters that waved their claws at me. But we're out tonight, eating with friends, and I really don't want to commit lobstercide on Christmas Day. It would kind of hang over me all evening.

The Eve of Pascha is my favourite but Christmas Eve runs it a close second. It was the day my father, who usually worked every daylight hour and then some, came home at midday with my mother's predictable box of Milk Tray chocolates tucked inside his jacket. He made Christmas Eve special without having the least idea he was doing it. First, he disappeared into the back of the pantry and hauled out last year's empty bottles. Then he'd load them into a shopping bag and he and I would walk two miles to the nearest off-licence to replenish stocks. Brown ale for himself and my grandmother, lemonade for me, egg flip and ruby port for the ladies. When we got home he'd light a fire, break out his annual box of cigars and reach for my copy of A Christmas Carol.
He'd read aloud from it, just the first fifty pages or so, and then when I was older it became my job to read it to him.
Marley was dead to begin with.

It was the only book I ever saw him open from one year's end to the next. And now it's sitting on my desk. I may read it to Mr F when he comes home. Right now he's doing what all red-blooded men do on Christmas Eve: wandering the streets hoping some affordable little gift for a wife jumps out and bites them. What can a wife say?
'Don't worry dear heart, I don't need a gift'? Or, 'If you're going to get me something please don't agonise over it out loud'?
Whatever I say might sound testy, so I'm going to hush up. It's Christmas Eve and nothing is going to take the shine off it.

Happy Christmas y'all.