Latest News > 12 days of Christmas

 

We’ve broken down your family Christmas this year and picked out the perfect presents for everyone who’ll be around the table. 

 

 

The Zapple Diaries – for Dad.

As far as he’s concerned its still 1965, the Beatles are the best band in the world and all music made since then is derivative. He thinks Drake is a brand of toilet cleaner and if you have one more argument about whether or not electronica ‘counts’ as ‘music’ Christmas might be cancelled. Give in. He’s been resisting change since John met Yoko…

 

I Love You Madly – for Mum

She dreams of having an affair and running away to Paris, leaving the rest of you to deal with the arguments, the mountains of washing up and the disapproving looks from the neighbours when she puts ALL those empty wine bottles out for recycling after Christmas… Or she just quite liked that BBC drama about Versailles that was on a few months ago…

 

The Sea and Poison – for Granddad

He’s watched so many World War Two films he’s convinced he served in the Pacific. You remember vividly the Christmas he put on his video of Tora! Tora! Tora! and when you thought it was mercifully over, he stuck The Bridge over the River Kwai into the VCR. You would have fallen asleep if he wasn’t swearing at the screen so much.

 

The Death of Mr Punch – for Grandma

She drinks sherry with breakfast, swears like a sailor and has twice been expelled from her care home for bad behaviour. Her penchant for sexual innuendo around the dinner table horrifies your mum and puts everyone off their turkey. Every year she promises to behave and every year you find yourself hiding the booze while she ‘sleeps it off’ in front of the telly.

 

Demian – for your spiritual uncle

Hesse, any Hesse, is for this uncle who recently quit his job, took up the guitar and yoga, and enrolled on a short course in music therapy. His occult powers were no more in evidence than the Christmas he described the opening of his ‘third eye’ and the family collectively lost its appetite for pigs in blankets.

 

Half a Pound of Tuppenny Rice – for your straight-laced aunt 

She puts plastic covers on the furniture and makes you take your shoes off at the door to ‘save’ the carpets. Her Christmas buffet wouldn’t look out of place at Abigail’s Party and every year she buys you the same deodorant and shower gel set and asks you prying questions about your love life or the lack thereof.

 

None Like Her – for your teenage sister

You’ve forgotten what her face looks like when it’s not illuminated by a screen. She only communicates via Snapchat and Instagram and gives you a look of total incomprehension when you tell her you met your partner in the pub rather than on Tinder. When you’re stuck at Granny’s without phone signal or wifi she’ll be grateful for the ‘analogue’ book you bought her…

 

Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent – for the family swot

Another Christmas with his head in a book. You don’t know what to say to him; that’s OK, he doesn’t know what to say to you, or anyone else for that matter. But you take a seat beside him because he’ll come in handy when it’s time for the quiz of the year.

 

Panorama – for the Black Sheep.

That mysterious cousin you’ve always secretly admired. They were in some kind of ‘trouble’ a few years ago, although you’ve never really known what it was… enigmatic, elusive and dangerously cool they can usually be found smoking Gauloises, drinking red wine and talking about an obscure eighteenth century philosopher.

 

Dom Casmurro – for your jilted uncle

Poor uncle. So harmless, so meek. He just didn’t see it coming. But you did, and so did everyone else. That was quite a Christmas when he let it all out at the aunt whom you no longer speak of. Your mum quietly tidied away the potatoes and tried to point out a robin on the windowsill, but no one cared. Let Bentinho show him the way to get over his Capitu.

 

The Three-Cornered World – for the creative cousin

Like every year, a little aloof and lost for things to say. Mostly because no one considers fine art a degree, but also because if she says too much, this family of hers is likely as not to send her to therapy; and she definitely doesn’t want that again. Most attentive to the black sheep, whose fearless anarchism she wishes she could imitate.

 

The Living Stones – for the ‘mad’ aunt

At forty she discovered that everyone is creative, including, and especially, herself. Now she describes herself as a mystic and has moved to Cornwall where she makes charms and sells them at local fairs, unless she’s giving them to you for Christmas.