Infamy in the Family Way

14th November 2013. In fact, yesterday.

Paraphrasing the famous rhetorical speech of Franklin D. Roosevelt it is "a day which will live in infamy". Of course that was on the 8th December 1941 and marking a momentous event in US and by implication, World History.

I am however referring to the discovery, horror upon horror ,that a family in a nearby town is already fully trimmed up for Christmas.

I was taken completely by surprise by the sight of the lounge decked out in all of its seasonal regalia and with the decorated and twinkling tree occupying a prominent position, or rather dominating one side of the room.

It had not been a case of a casual throwing up of the tree or a gradual assimilation into Santa's Grotto but a determined effort over the preceeding days to my visit to become fully established as an outpost of the North Pole.

Around the base of the 7 foot tall artificial tree were the family presents, nicely wrapped up in shiny foil , carefully tied off in ribbon and parcel type labels, swinging gently in the breeze generated by the opening of the front door to let me in.

The walls were festooned with paper chains, lovingly assembled by the children of the house, long tinsel twists and caricature figures of Father Christmas, Reindeer and Homer Simpson.

Whatever my feelings of shock and disbelief at the time this family were beyond criticism in terms of their forward planning and organisation.

Lets face it, the John Lewis TV advert was not yet a week old in the perception of the public. Iceland Frozen Foods had only just revealed their pigs in blankets and other specialist fare. Marks and Spencers were just setting out on their campaign with trance-like tripping references to Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz to offload their Christmas stock. Aldi and Lidl were still trying to shake off the suspicions of the British about their European origins with a sort of home grown Anglicised humour.

I did feel a bit sorry for the youngest children in the house. There were four of them, appearing to be under the age of 5 and on that day, a Thursday in term time, they were all at home wrapped up in blankets and lying around on the settee or carpet and with the youngest in a baby bouncer seat.

Amongst the fragrances of cinnamon and winter spice from the seasonal air freshener in the room was a faint but familiar odour reminiscent of my own children when under the weather, mewling and puking and with the succinctly termed bum-squirts. Poor loves. I would think that they were stressed out and confused by the arrival of the tree and all its accoutrements in their own home in mid November.

It is going to be a very long run in for the little mites, a sort of 12 Days plus 40 Days of Christmas. I would personally go a little insane in not having access to the special Radio or TV Times for another 3 weeks and being denied the sheer delight of putting a ring around selected and not to be missed movies. There are still another 15 days before the first Advent Calendar window can be prised open and a vague chocolate shaped devoured under the covers before breakfast. It will be another four weeks or so before the round of Playgroup and School Parties, assuming the occupants of that house recover sufficiently to return to their respective classes. It may be a few weeks before any of the neighbours catch up with their displays of lights and inflatable roof mounted characters, strangely including that Homer Simpson again.

I was a little bit enraged by this early start to Christmas.

This was borne out of my own strict policy of no tree and decorations before the second Saturday in December. Not one day before and not one day after.

I was possibly prepared to say something to who I fully expected to be errant and neglectful parents but the look of absolute calm and serenity on the faces of Mum and Dad convinced me of the absolute sense in their approach.

Everything was ready, wrapped, prepared and expected. They could relax in the run up to the Festival with no nasty surprises or last minute panic buying that in my experience just throws off any attempt at keeping a control on outgoings even after few months of scrimping and saving. They were ready to just enjoy it and as they say, "have a good one".

On the way back from this house of revelations I stopped off at the garden centre and placed an order for a large outdoor display of sledge, full reindeer compliment and a jolly rubberised Santa with complimentary lights and a guaranteed deliver date for the month of November. The Santa did have a striking resemblance to Homer Simpson.