The Christmas lights and street decorations have started to go up in York. The Shambles and Stonegate are the first to get the treatment, sporting great garlands of greenery and fairy lights. By St Nicholas' Fayre at the end of November every street in the city will be trussed up with little Christmas trees and decorations; all of the (actual) trees in St Sampson's Sqaure and on Parliament Street will be hung with lights that flicker and 'fall' to look like snow. The streets will be overwhelmed with stalls and with hordes of visiting shoppers on the hunt for that perfect Christmas present. Residents will shoot out for the first Thursday evening of the Fayre (no coach groups; few tourists) and then retreat to their homes for the weekend to avoid the mayhem.
The festive season has come early this year for us too, as we spent nearly the whole of today making Christmas cakes. Next Sunday is actually the traditional 'Stir-Up' day, when Christmas puddings and cakes are made, but I'm working then and since it's really a full weekend task (with all the fruit soaking, the intensive stirring and then the 3 hours cooking time per cake), we decided to bring it a week earlier. A week later and the cakes wouldn't have time to drink up all the alcohol we'll 'feed' them between now and Christmas week. Six weeks of intensive basting, re-wrapping and icing makes for the moistest cake I think. Esther and I make lots to distribute around our families. My grandma used to do this when I was younger, but now she isn't able to (although she still insists upon making the Christmas pudding, using my grandad as fetcher, carrier and stirrer) and so I've taken up the mantel.
(Lest you fear Alexandria has been transformed into a baking blog, I assure you I'm getting back to books in just a moment.)
This has necessitated the return to the shelf of one of my Christmas guilty pleasures: Nigella Christmas , a bumper seasonal compendium of all things domestic goddess. Therein Nigella tells me how to make Christmas cocktails, Christmas canapes, Christmas dinner, Christmas cakes; how to use up my left-over champagne (I struggle to imagine such a thing!) and a dozen things to do with the never-ending turkey. There are lots of pictures of her looking manic, bosoms heaving, cradling trays of mince pies or huge clove studded hams. Everything is red or green or snow-flecked. It's shamelessly kitsch, and I love every page of it. Each year I heave it off the bottom of the book shelf and rediscover again my desire to make my own mincemeat, to spend 12 hours making Christmas cakes and to produce piles of 'edible' tree decorations that we never eat. It gives me ridiculous pleasure.
If you hadn't already guessed, I'm one of those people who likes Christmas. I think because I'm a fan of preparing for things. I like anticipating something, rolling it around and around in my mind, and no other holiday comes with the same prepatory baggage as dear old Christmas. I realise it isn't everyones cup of tea, and the day itself can often be a letdown, but the ritual of the baking and the present buying/making/wrapping satisfies me immensely. In my mind it really does have that glow of peace and goodwill about it, a true Dickensian expansiveness. When I was a child, Christmas was the only time of year when my brother and I would call truce on our sibling war, and become best of friends for the span of three days. A lot of my happiest memories are Christmas memories. (Except for the year when said brother pulled the legs off my new Barbie within minutes of my opening it. That was not a good day.)
And, of course, with the cakes in the oven and some Christmas music playing (yes, I know, shameful), my thoughts turn prematurely to Christmas reading. Every year I read Dickens' Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve. But I also like to have another big Classic on the go, something meaty and satisfying for by the fire. Dickens has been my companion the last two years: Great Expectations in 2009 and Bleak House in 2010. Should I continue in that vein this year? I'm considering either David Copperfield or Nicholas Nickleby. But then perhaps I should make a change and go with another Victorian whopper. (I could read Claire Tomalin's biography of Dickens as a substitute!) I've already considered and rejected Hardy, Eliot and the Brontes, but Trollope is a possibility. I have three of his books waiting in the wings: Orley Farm, The Way We Live Now and The Eustace Diamonds. The latter is the third of the Palliser series, which I began the year before last. Or I could finally give Vanity Fair a go? Or embark on Gaskell's last novel, Wives and Daughters?
Or perhaps I should sidestep the Victorians altogether and re-read some Austen, or try some Maria Edgeworth (I have both Patronage and Helen); or some more Walter Scott. Or disavow the big Classic and go for a fat historical novel instead, like Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety? How can I possibly choose. Good job I still have six weeks to work it all out.
~~Victoria~~