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‘I love it,’ I lie. ‘It’s so much better than what I had going on.’
‘Yours was a bit soulless,’ Jess points out. ‘Don’t worry, I put out lots of pink sparkly bits to match the wreath.’
Oh, Jesus Christ, I can’t even see them. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad one.
‘Let’s get this shopping put away then,’ I say, changing the subject. ‘Oh, have you done it?’
‘No, no, it’s all here, behind the island,’ Mum replies. ‘I didn’t want to overstep the mark, I’m sure you know exactly how you like your cupboards to be.’
Oh, the irony.
‘Thank you,’ I reply.
Well, at least it’s the 16th today. I got to make the most of my decorations the way I liked them for a few weeks. With a week to go until Christmas, they’ll all be coming down again soon anyway, and Mum does seem really happy, having all her traditional decorations around her, so that’s nice, I guess. Even if I do feel kind of claustrophobic just looking at it all.
‘Oh, I almost forgot,’ Mum says, hurrying over to one of the windows to grab a small remote. ‘There we go.’
With one push of the button, the windows in the living room all spring to life with small twinkling lights, hanging down in front of them like curtains.
‘The finishing touch,’ Jess says as she plonks herself down on the sofa. ‘What’s for dinner?’
I just laugh quietly to myself. In just over a week, Christmas will be over, I’m sure Jess will take off before New Year’s Eve, because she’s one of those people who can’t acknowledge a new year without throwing a booze-heavy wake for the previous one, and Mum’s house will be ready before you know it. And then I’ll have my house back – back to the way I want it.
And it can’t come soon enough.
6
I am woken up by the sound of Wizzard’s ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ blasting through the house. I can’t quite figure out if the song is on repeat, or whether it’s just so much longer than I remember it being.
I thought I was being so smart and sophisticated when I had speakers fitted throughout the house that all linked to the home hub in the kitchen. The main pro of doing this, other than being able to ask the smart device for music, is that it doesn’t matter which room in the house you are in, your music follows you around. The major con, it turns out, is that when someone asks for a song to be played (without knowing to ask for a specific room) it just plays everywhere. I grab my phone from my bedside table, open the app, and tell the music to stop playing in my bedroom.
Peace at last? Nope, I can still hear it playing downstairs (stupid century-old house), and as ‘I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday’ transitions into ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’ by Slade, it only seems louder. I swear, Noddy Holder’s voice actually permeates the floorboards.
I guess I’m getting up then.
I head into my en suite, where thankfully the white marble tiles dampen the music a little. It’s a shame I can’t stay in here all day. I wash my face, brush my teeth and moodily shrug on my dressing gown – livid to be out of bed before 10 a.m. on not only a Saturday, but the start of my time off from work. I usually like to decompress by sleeping in for the first few days, to offset all the early mornings throughout the term – something I can’t do on a normal weekend, because throwing off my sleeping pattern makes those Monday mornings all the harder.
By the time I find Mum in the kitchen, already dolled up to the eyes, all wrapped up in a festive apron, she’s listening to Lady A’s almost aggressively cheery cover of ‘A Holly Jolly Christmas’.
She dances over to meet me in the dining room, singing into a wooden spoon to serenade me.
I allow her to flap my arms a little, like a moody kid, but I can’t help but smile.
‘Crêpe?’ she says.
‘You’re telling me,’ I reply.
‘No,crêpe,’ she says again. ‘You cheeky little girl.’
‘That would be great,’ I admit, pulling up a stool at the island.
‘You’ll be pleased to see I’m serving them with Chantilly cream and clementines,’ Mum points out. ‘Making use of the clementines already, see.’
‘Well played,’ I reply.
‘Cuppa tea?’ she asks. That really should be Mum’s catchphrase. It’s definitely her cure-all answer to everything.
‘I might have a coffee,’ I reply.
