Christmas CURSE

MICHELE A’COURT REVISITS A YULETIDE MEMORY THAT SEEMED FATED TO FAIL

We can be slow to learn some of life’s simplest lessons. That whole “not tempting fate” thing is a class I have failed time and time again.

There was that Christmas Eve several years ago, for example, when the whole family had gathered at my place. I always find the preparation for Christmas crazy stressful (who doesn’t?), coming as it does during the busiest time of my work year. So all the big things – late-night gigs, shopping, food preparation, making up the spare beds, end-of-year paperwork – gallop along beside each other as the immoveable Christmas Day deadline looms.

I had expected to be still wrapping gifts and assembling trifle till midnight, but somehow at 5pm everything was done. At which point I said in a much too loud voice to our houseful of guests that I was “ready for Christmas”. Boom!

The phone rang and it was my father’s doctor saying his test results had arrived and we needed to admit him immediately to hospital. At almost the same moment, my little niece ran face-first into our glass door and smashed it – just the door, thank goodness, not her face.