London Letter: Christmas dinner traditions continue

Perhaps one of the tougher aspects of immigrating is the fact that Christmases are not spent with extended families.

In our case, we have had only one Christmas in South Africa since we immigrated.However, we’ve almost always had the good fortune of having my mom-in-law with us.

But now even she, a hardy soul, finds the English winters a little too frigid for her liking.

This year it’s just us and the brats, and as management ruefully acknowledges even that may be a tradition under threat as they get girlfriends and their own extended families.

But management, true to form, has taken the bull by the horns and started a tradition of her own: there will always be a Spence Christmas dinner with the brats and their squeezes, even if it is not on Christmas day.

It kicked off last weekend when management formally instructed, or invited as she calls it, the two lads and their respective ladies to present themselves at the Spence casa for Crimbo (as the Brit kids call it).

I was right behind this, until it dawned that I would have to fetch said brats and squeezes.

This meant a trip to Southampton, which is about an hour away, and a trip to Birmingham, which is two hours away.

So all in all, six hours on the road counting the return journey. Fortunately the Birmingham brat said they would catch the train, so that just left me with the shorter trip.

Management was like a kid at …er, Christmas. She was so excited, particularly as we have not seen one of the brats for several months.

I also think she likes that fact that this would be one occasion when she was not the only girl in the place.

Consequently she went out of the way to do girlie things, like putting flowers in the boys’ rooms (you should’ve seen the look on their faces) and frilly decorations on the dining room table.

She also wanted to buy the girls exotic presents and I had to remind her that these were not necessarily permanent fixtures.

When you are 19-years-old, squeezes tend to be transient, although one has been with his for well over a year.

She did listen and so the presents were just perfumed candles, which the girls gushed over.

What made it doubly exciting for management was that one of the squeezes is a non-meat eater, but loves fish.

Thus management could really show off her chef skills with two choice dishes, one being a half-metre slab of salmon fillet.

The starters were melted Camembert with something veggie for the one squeeze and chorizo for the rest of us.

I have learnt from experience that when you’re outnumbered by young adults, the evening is not about you.

Do not try and dominate the conversation; they are not interested in any sentence from an oldie that starts with ‘When I was …’

And probably with good reason.

So I spent the evening making sure wine glasses were filled and revelling in banter at a pitch and intensity that only the young can sustain.

It was great, and we learnt a lot about their lives that we wouldn’t have if we had been the centre of conversation.

Maybe, just maybe, in some cases from management’s perspective, there could’ve been a tiny too much information about parties.

Another lesson is don’t try and outpace them. By midnight they were still in full flight, so I went to bed.

The only consolation was that I was first up and had free reign of the bathroom – which believe me, with six adults in a tiny house is no small ask.

Anyway, the tradition has been started.

The only problem is that one of the brats told us that he may be doing his third year of university in Norway to boost to his academic credentials.

This came as a surprise to us as it means another year of mounting student bills – and also that he won’t be in England.

Not to worry, management is on the case.

Next year Crimbo is in Oslo.