In Good Company: Christmas Stock
Enid Blackburn wrote this article in the run-up to Christmas some years ago.
The shops have been filled with Christmas stock ever since we returned from summer holidays, but I usually manage to ignore this until after bonfire night.
Once the planning starts, I am swamped by all the other events that sneak alongside. We also have four birthdays and our silver wedding anniversary to be worried through before Christmas dinner.
It is an especially expensive time for students. I scoured the shops with one of our teenagers, trying to find her a Saturday job – no luck. ‘How old are you?’ one boutique owner asked our 15-year-old. ‘Sorry, love, we are looking for Christmas staff, but we need a 16-year-old.’ I explained she would be 16 next month, but she was adamant.
We lied about her age at the next shop. ‘Sixteen,’ we answered. It didn’t work. ‘Sorry, love, there is a law which states Saturday workers must be seventeen.’
The assistant at the next store apologised for the delay, as she had to climb over huge boxes of Christmas stock waiting to be unpacked. She obligingly rang her superior about our request, while my daughter practised looking eighteen. ‘No, and no waiting list either,’ was the answer.
At the next stop we were told quite enthusiastically that names were now being taken for next year’s list. Finally we gave up and drowned our sorrows in a cup of coffee – after quizzing the staff about Saturday vacancies, first, of course.
On our way home it was depressing to see all the shops decked out with everything money can buy. The magazines offer crafty inexpensive ideas for gifts. Home made luxuries like egg-cosies, toilet-roll covers, even tissue pack covers. One gains endless pleasure from making these, which only recedes when you have to decide who to palm them off on to.
The season’s fashionable slit-skirts certainly take the seam sewing out of home dressmaking. There are hardly any about. I don’t know whether I am happy about all this leg showing or not. If I were two stones lighter, I’d probably be slashing seams with the rest of them.
I suffer these wild urges occasionally, a sort of last fling at wearing the ridiculous before I am stuck with the sublime. I’d love to turn up at a party wearing a scarlet see-through strapless, slashed to the thigh, with the hip-length hair I never achieved, tumbling over my shoulder. Women in my age group have these fantasies – I understand!
While I was alone with Radio 1 and the washing up last Sunday, I couldn’t resist trying out my latest disco routine. Like all experts, I do all my best performances in front of the kitchen mirror. ‘Very good, Mrs B,’ said the amused voice of daughter’s boyfriend, who just happened to be peeping through the banister rails at the time.
