Monday, December 26, 2005
A Christmas Conundrum
My programme article from the game against Aldershot, 26/12/05
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas Day, that Father Christmas brought you all you wanted and that you didn’t have any unfortunate accidents with the oven leading to uncooked turkey’s and seriously delayed meals. For the next few hours you can forget about the clearing up and enjoy the company of a few thousand of your fellow City fans.
One of the first things I check when a new season’s fixtures are released is whether or not City have a home game on Boxing Day. There’s something special about going to the football feeling slightly worse for wear after a day of too much wine, turkey and cranberry sauce. When you’ve spent Christmas Day shut up indoors with the food and the family, playing Trivial Pursuit and watching whatever Christmas special was on BBC1, a City home game helps to blow away the cobwebs and helps you get over that all too familiar feeling that once again Christmas was an anti-climax.
A long running debate in my house about Christmas Day is: what is the best time to have the main meal? Should it be Christmas lunch or Christmas dinner? Health fanatics will insist that you must have Christmas lunch and then go for a walk afterwards to start burning off some of that excess food. (Actually, a true health fanatic would insist that the family only ate what they needed, rather than gorge themselves, but that’s not important right now.)
Certainly, a post-lunch walk on Christmas Day can be a great family event (depending on how much everyone has had to drink). However, a lunchtime meal means that some unfortunate person has to get up early to put the turkey on and generally start preparing the food. And inevitably, having eaten, tiredness sets in and you’re lucky to make it to 8pm before dropping off on the sofa.
Personally, I’m in favour of a late meal. This always seems to extend the day, giving plenty of time to open presents in the afternoon and for a few board games after dinner. Of course, the danger with leaving playing board games until so late in the day is that everyone has been drinking since at least the early afternoon and it’s quite likely a minor disagreement over who owns Park Lane, or whether that Trivial Pursuit answer is right, could turn into a major domestic incident.
After all the Christmas Day palaver, what better way to spend Boxing Day than at St James Park, watching City battle it out for promotion back into the league? It’s a great way to shake off those post-Christmas blues. Also, it helps build up your appetite for one of life’s greatest pleasures: cold turkey, bread sauce, and cranberry sauce sandwiches. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without one.
With Christmas coming to an end, a new year is fast approaching which inevitably means we have to start thinking about New Years Resolutions. I’ve only ever managed to keep one resolution for an entire year: I gave up chocolate. This had very little to do with will power, and very much to do with the fact my brother bet me £20 that I couldn’t do it. It’s amazing what you can do when there’s money involved. I’m not sure what I should give up this time around but there are a few days to go yet. I’ll have a bit of a think.
I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas Day, that Father Christmas brought you all you wanted and that you didn’t have any unfortunate accidents with the oven leading to uncooked turkey’s and seriously delayed meals. For the next few hours you can forget about the clearing up and enjoy the company of a few thousand of your fellow City fans.
One of the first things I check when a new season’s fixtures are released is whether or not City have a home game on Boxing Day. There’s something special about going to the football feeling slightly worse for wear after a day of too much wine, turkey and cranberry sauce. When you’ve spent Christmas Day shut up indoors with the food and the family, playing Trivial Pursuit and watching whatever Christmas special was on BBC1, a City home game helps to blow away the cobwebs and helps you get over that all too familiar feeling that once again Christmas was an anti-climax.
A long running debate in my house about Christmas Day is: what is the best time to have the main meal? Should it be Christmas lunch or Christmas dinner? Health fanatics will insist that you must have Christmas lunch and then go for a walk afterwards to start burning off some of that excess food. (Actually, a true health fanatic would insist that the family only ate what they needed, rather than gorge themselves, but that’s not important right now.)
Certainly, a post-lunch walk on Christmas Day can be a great family event (depending on how much everyone has had to drink). However, a lunchtime meal means that some unfortunate person has to get up early to put the turkey on and generally start preparing the food. And inevitably, having eaten, tiredness sets in and you’re lucky to make it to 8pm before dropping off on the sofa.
Personally, I’m in favour of a late meal. This always seems to extend the day, giving plenty of time to open presents in the afternoon and for a few board games after dinner. Of course, the danger with leaving playing board games until so late in the day is that everyone has been drinking since at least the early afternoon and it’s quite likely a minor disagreement over who owns Park Lane, or whether that Trivial Pursuit answer is right, could turn into a major domestic incident.
After all the Christmas Day palaver, what better way to spend Boxing Day than at St James Park, watching City battle it out for promotion back into the league? It’s a great way to shake off those post-Christmas blues. Also, it helps build up your appetite for one of life’s greatest pleasures: cold turkey, bread sauce, and cranberry sauce sandwiches. It just wouldn’t be Christmas without one.
With Christmas coming to an end, a new year is fast approaching which inevitably means we have to start thinking about New Years Resolutions. I’ve only ever managed to keep one resolution for an entire year: I gave up chocolate. This had very little to do with will power, and very much to do with the fact my brother bet me £20 that I couldn’t do it. It’s amazing what you can do when there’s money involved. I’m not sure what I should give up this time around but there are a few days to go yet. I’ll have a bit of a think.
# posted by GrecianEd @ 9:22 pm 
