Sunday Storytelling

My internet buddy Siân, an accomplished thinker, writer and crafter, has invited her fellow bloggers to sit by her fireside to share stories on the first Sunday of each month - Storytelling Sundays.  Now that ties in rather nicely with my post from yesterday when I teased my reader(s) that they'd have to check back today to find out why our family eat the Christmas turkey dinner, complete with all the trimmings, on Christmas Eve.

Are you sitting comfortably?  ... Then I'll begin.

Once upon a time, many, many years ago, when two little boys were still wearing Christmas waistcoats, Father Christmas visited their house one, not so snowy, Christmas Eve laden with huge boxes of Lego.  Not just any old Lego blocks, mind, this was Lego for building castles with trapdoors, turrets, a portcullis, secret passageways and dungeons.  Boys' Lego!  Now this sort of Lego doesn't just build itself.  Oh no!  This sort of Lego requires that you follow the Enclosed Instructions, Step by Step, and if you miss out one of those Steps, then the trapdoor won't trap or the passageway won't be secret, or the dungeons won't hold your prisoners.

Unfortunately, boys who still wear Christmas waistcoats aren't that good at following  Enclosed Instructions and these two needed some help from their Lego loving mother.  Their father might have been able to help, but he wasn't too keen on Lego, and was happier counting the bubbles in the Christmas champagne and peeling potatoes.  Even more unfortunately, there was a huge Christmas turkey dinner to be prepared.  Thus it was that the Lego castle construction suffered from several delays and interruptions, caused not by plumbers or builder's merchants or carpenters, but by parsnips and brussels sprouts and cranberry sauce.  The two boys found comfort in the chocolate coins from their stockings and wiping sticky hands on Christmas waistcoats.

Eventually all building work was halted because the aforementioned turkey was ready to eat and the family foursome gathered around the table to pull crackers and enjoy.  However, boys who still wear Christmas waistcoats and have eaten lots of sweets don't really have stomachs big enough for plates full of turkey and roast potatoes and parsnips and peas even if you do remove the brussels sprouts beforehand.  Nor are they that keen on brandy soaked Christmas pudding, even if the bit when the lights were put out and the pud was set alight was quite exciting.

Meanwhile it was getting on for 2 o'clock and some Star Wars film was about to start on TV.  Now that was something that boys who still wear Christmas waistcoats could relate to.  Especially if their Star Wars loving father had an arm to put around each of them and room on the sofa next to him.  Who cared that the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it, with mounds of left over turkey, veg and pud alongside stacks of plates and bowls and cups?  Not these three Jedi warriors.

Luckily for them, there was a dish-washing fairy in the house who wasn't that bothered by watching the Empire strike back or whether there was a new hope for any Jedis coming back!  And once the dishes were done and the left-overs stored away and the kitchen was usable again, those Enclosed Instructions were followed to the Step, enabling two boys who were still wearing their Christmas waistcoats, to dunk Darth Vader in the moat and release Princess Leia from the dungeon.

Not everyone is lucky enough to have a dish-washing fairy to visit every Christmas, so the mother helped the father of the two boys to agree that they'd rather both be able to relax on Christmas Day and both be able help with the toys or count champagne bubbles if preferred, and that if there was ever to be another Christmas turkey dinner it had better be sorted out the night before Christmas, and just to be on the safe side, they'd better get a dishwasher too!

And from then on, they lived happily ever after.

Thank you for listening so patiently.  I'm now off to look for a photo of those Christmas waistcoats!