Aftermath

Todays title pertains to the current time of year - a period which, although is technically within the twelve days of christmas, is regarded by pretty much everyone as the aftermath of the festive season. 

The Lovell household is no exception to this annual tradition and here, like in many other houses, lunch consists of whatever is left of the yuletide feastings (sometimes even for the kitten, who has recently discovered his own love for real ham), and water is pretty much entirely substituted for by soft drinks of various unearthly hues.

Of course another aspect of this post Christmas period is the analyising and comparing of gifts.  I always struggle to see Christmas in its religious light, because for me the birth of Jesus isn't as great as the whole death / ressurection side of things.  Obviously it's still a great thing to remember the whole 'word became flesh' type stuff, and Christmas covers the aspect of God humbling himself and becoming man more than Easter, but no amount of theology is really going to entirely remove the appeal of a celebration which involves getting free things over the course of  a few days, often from people you haven't see since last year's festivities.  The question, therefore, which lingers on the lips of all you readers cannot help but be 'What did David Lovell get for Christmas?'  See, I hear tell of all these kids of facebook who did or didn't get Ipods/pads, blackberries or laptops, and to me the whole concept is a bit bizarre and shallow, becuase it becomes more about the actual value and status of what you're getting than the love of the person who gave it.  Forgive me for such soppiness and moral one-up-manship, but this year most of my greatests gifts were of minimal commercial value, like the kazoo from Father Christmas, which probably cost a couple of quid but brings such joy to me when I play it.  (Not neccesarily those around me, though.)  Then theres the pack of 36 nerf darts I also got in my stocking, another childish delight that enables me to run around the house pumping friends family and occasinally the odd pet with 50 calibre rounds of orange squidgy goodness.  I do have one memory I'm not hugely proud of, which involved my father, a plastic bag, my kitten and a few of said darts travelling at concerning velocity into the plastic bag, which some claim there is the off chance my father may have been holding up, and then the miniscule probability that my kitten may have been helplessly writhing in said bag.  Still, it was a good present.

I'm becoming aware that this post is quite long, but there's not a lot I can do about that.  I shall now proceed to recount the loose pattern of my Christmas celebratory good times.

Christmas day was good, we opened our stockings, got some cool things and set off to the Christmas service, after which we went home and had Grandma and Grandad main round for dinner, along with our longstanding friend of family auntie Gladys. 

Unnoficial boxing day was spent at my cousin's house, which was a sweet good time involving me and Andy Lovell eating turkey and the like while everyone else had salmon and goo, then making great cousinly jokes, getting really tired (to the extent that I tried to put my cereal under the tap instead of putting milk on it) then getting more tired, youtubing some Trip K and the like, and going home and having some sleeps.

Official boxing day was also great, we went to the house of aforementioned grandparents and hung out with my mum's side of the family, which was alright.

I'm gonna be frank, there was about 20 minutes between this line and the one above it.  I'm getting quite distracted by the old youtube, and reflecting on the irony of the post's title becuase I actually have loads of maths revision to do.  Tara.