I'm not one to pay attention to the Christmas creep. Well, not really anyway.
I'd avoided all the Bah Humbuggers, collectively cursing the Yuletide and all things related on every social media platform possible. I'd shown equal amounts of indifference to festive manics, saying things such as, "only seven Saturdays 'til Christmas!", as if it had suddenly become appropriate to use the number of Saturdays as an appropriate measurement of time.
I think it was only towards the end of November that it got to me. We were dismantling equipment after an open mic. I did a lap of the room, plucking flames out tea lights with damp fingertips. Usually, the smell of smocking wicks incites different emotions - birthdays, sucrose saturated blood streams, extreme bashfulness due to incessant choruses of "happy birthday to you", (because what did I deserve for them to be singing for me?)
This was different. This was Christmas.
I'm very bad with candles - more specifically, candle wax. I'm a messer as it is, but candle wax is a different ball game. I blow candles out so I can play with the wax. I wiggle them around so that the pool of warm wax builds upon itself. I stick my fingers in it so that it hardens on my fingertips and I resemble some sort of half-human, half-reptilian being.
Or just a freak with a candle fetish.
One Christmas, in the run-up to, I remember my mam had been gifted a tall red Newbridge Christmas candle.It stood in silver stand, with a repeating reindeer pattern. The candle itself was made of twisted wax, with a white wick.
I think I was nine - old enough to know better - and in my eagerness, I knocked the candle off the mantle.
The sitting room looked like a crime scene - hot red wax splashed all over the timber floor. This saw me gleefully pushing my initials into the wax, before I realised that wax dries as quickly as it melts, and that my mam was going to fucking kill me.
Back to present day, approximately 250 kilometres away from my family home, I was filled with an enormous sense of longing. All of a sudden the world gets a little bigger, and so does the distance. I found myself shopping for a Christmas tree for the apartment, despite the fact that only one of my housemates would be up long enough to appreciate it. I decorated it, but it was a shadow of the one at home - sparse lights, mismatched tinsel, tiny stockings stitched in primary school.
I was ready for the annual argument over the fact we never have potato croquettes for Christmas dinner, courtesy of my sister. I was ready for a house that resembled Santa's grotto. I was ready for my mam telling me to stay away from the candles.
I was ready to come home.
I'd avoided all the Bah Humbuggers, collectively cursing the Yuletide and all things related on every social media platform possible. I'd shown equal amounts of indifference to festive manics, saying things such as, "only seven Saturdays 'til Christmas!", as if it had suddenly become appropriate to use the number of Saturdays as an appropriate measurement of time.
I think it was only towards the end of November that it got to me. We were dismantling equipment after an open mic. I did a lap of the room, plucking flames out tea lights with damp fingertips. Usually, the smell of smocking wicks incites different emotions - birthdays, sucrose saturated blood streams, extreme bashfulness due to incessant choruses of "happy birthday to you", (because what did I deserve for them to be singing for me?)
This was different. This was Christmas.
I'm very bad with candles - more specifically, candle wax. I'm a messer as it is, but candle wax is a different ball game. I blow candles out so I can play with the wax. I wiggle them around so that the pool of warm wax builds upon itself. I stick my fingers in it so that it hardens on my fingertips and I resemble some sort of half-human, half-reptilian being.
Or just a freak with a candle fetish.
One Christmas, in the run-up to, I remember my mam had been gifted a tall red Newbridge Christmas candle.It stood in silver stand, with a repeating reindeer pattern. The candle itself was made of twisted wax, with a white wick.
I think I was nine - old enough to know better - and in my eagerness, I knocked the candle off the mantle.
The sitting room looked like a crime scene - hot red wax splashed all over the timber floor. This saw me gleefully pushing my initials into the wax, before I realised that wax dries as quickly as it melts, and that my mam was going to fucking kill me.
Back to present day, approximately 250 kilometres away from my family home, I was filled with an enormous sense of longing. All of a sudden the world gets a little bigger, and so does the distance. I found myself shopping for a Christmas tree for the apartment, despite the fact that only one of my housemates would be up long enough to appreciate it. I decorated it, but it was a shadow of the one at home - sparse lights, mismatched tinsel, tiny stockings stitched in primary school.
I was ready for the annual argument over the fact we never have potato croquettes for Christmas dinner, courtesy of my sister. I was ready for a house that resembled Santa's grotto. I was ready for my mam telling me to stay away from the candles.
I was ready to come home.
