We tried! Goodness we tried! Is there such a thing as a Perfect Christmas? Is it all a marketing dream? A time of year, that if we dared to admit to not actually enjoying it, or have the courage to say, anticipate it with dread, we may be viewed as failures, sad people? It is just a Day after all!

Our Christmas day was as perfect as I expected, no more, no less! Expectations are set too high for mere mortals to achieve. Twenty regulars, including my Morty and I, gathered together for a Festive Christmas Day Lunch at a Private Party in out Local Pub. Each couple put £20.00 into the 'Liquid Kitty' and also provided first courses such as Pate, Crudités, Dips, Prawns and the like. One dish of vegetables a couple including honeyed parsnips, gingered carrots, fruit and chestnut stuffing, braised leeks, sprouts with walnuts, petit- pois a la Francois. Christmas Pudding, mince pies, trifles while our Hostess and Landlady provided and cooked to absolute perfection, Wild Boar, Roast Turkey, Game sausages and Glazed Ham.

It was a feast, but here's what really happened:

1) Don't sit Morty next to woman wearing cream linen! The Christmas Lunch dining table for twenty friends was beautifully laid up, with place names and a gift at each setting. Our Hostess at our local pub had obviously forgotten Morty's tendency to knock drinks over, and sat him next to a young female friend, clad from head to foot in a cream linen trouser suit. He excelled himself by knocking over an entire bottle of good Claret, before we'd even started the first course! She was stained from the chest down looking for the entire world like a road accident victim! The criminal waste in using another bottle of white wine, expensive Chablis at that, and salt, to shift the blood red marks from her Designer outfit, brought tears to our eyes.

2) Don't sit two 'Old Gits' next to each other at the dining table. (You won't believe it!) In her infinite wisdom, our Hostess had sat two married couples together, man-woman-man-woman. Unlike everybody else around the table, they had never actually met each other, even though they were all regulars drinking at different times of the week. Both elderly 'Gentlemen' are our token 'Old Scrotes!' both wealthy, and having much younger third wives. The gathering of individuals around the table ranged from seventeen through to the seventy-odd years of the Scrotes. Unfortunately, one of the wives changed places, and the two 'Old Gits' ended up sitting next to each other. There was instant hostility, they clashed head on concerning a misplaced remark about a female with a deep cleavage, they became verbally abusive, resulting in one of them storming off in the middle of the Wild Boar and Turkey main course, and declaring in a booming voice that he'd never met such a disgusting creature that dared to call himself a Gentleman! All attempts to get him to sit down again were wasted, and he eventually flounced out of the bash, muttering about the behaviour of disgraceful old men, leaving the offender cackling wickedly into his Brussels, feeling very much the victor.

3) Don't invite the 'ex's and expect them to get on! Our Hostess is in-between relationships and being a generous spirited woman, had invited two ex-partners to share Christmas Day with her own circle of friends. They managed to maintain a dignified respect towards each other until the final hours, that stage of a party when everybody should have gone home, when the two men physically attacked each other. A 24 stone guest, built like a brick S**t-H**se attempted to separate them, but the Police had to be called before they wrecked the Bar and drew blood.

4) 'Pass the Port' does actually mean that! Morty is a beer and red wine drinker. He didn't appear to grasp the principle applied to 'Pass the Port' and managed to keep and slurp an entire bottle on his own, while the rest of the guests tried to wrestle the Stilton from him. He spent the entire Boxing Day complaining about the pain in his big toe, and considering the fact he probably has Gout, alternating between sweating and shivering and has made a New Year Resolution to drink more tap water!

5) Beer! Crofts Original Iced Sherry! Champagne! Claret! White Burgundy! Port! No! I don't think so! Doo Yoo? Not advisable!

6) Don't wear those 5-inch heels! Elegant as you may feel, with legs as long as you have ever dreamed of, towering at 5 feet 10 inches, the height you wish you had been born to be, with the same weight as you are now, don't wear them! It's Christmas Day, you've over imbibed, your ability to walk may be impaired, the Taxi firms are running a skeleton service, and you will probably have to walk home! In those heels???

7) Be prepared to rescue 'Old Git' from demolishing the Christmas tree. When 'Old Git No: 1' begins the Christmas Lunch by falling unaccountably into the exquisitely decorated tree and you are standing next to him at the time, be prepared to lose a nail extension or two as you rush to rescue the drunken old Scrote from a potential disaster, thus leaving you with two stumps staring back at you from your once expensively, professionally manicured hands, and wondering which direction the tips flew in, wishing you'd brought the adhesive with you, and were they now in the peanut dish, and praying silently that 'Old Git No: 2' eats them and chokes.

8) Don't on any account let your partner crash out on top of the duvet! Having staggered home on 5-inch heels (No Taxi) whilst rescuing Port sodden partner from meandering into the middle of the road into the oncoming traffic, on no account let him crash out on top of the bed, with his mouth open, snoring and fully clothed. You have no chance of a decent night's sleep, or even getting under the duvet yourself, as he's lying crossways on top of the bed, has become three times his normal weight and impossible to move on your own, and deaf to your shouting " Shut-Up Snoring!"

9) Don't accept invites for Boxing Day, in the knowledge you'll be unfit! Having such a good time, yes? Love everybody? Aren't they just the best company in the whole World? Feel popular? All those great invites for Drinky-Poos and nibbles you are accepting for the next day, Boxing Day? Don't! You'll only have to 'phone them the next morning and lie by saying your cat has the 'flu! or at worst " Morty has Gout!"

10) Don't Do It! Promise yourself right now, that next Christmas you tell friends and family you'll be in Australia; but you stay home and have a Lock-In! Chocolate, Videos, food you really want to eat, good wine and each other; we are. I promise you!

Mornev © 2001