by the way, Merry Christmas and the mysterious CD

and I hope you had a great solstice. Summer or winter. I’ve been a bit bothered, these past few years, about the whole “Merry Christmas” thing. I think I may have caught a touch of political correctness there. Can’t remember where, (on the radio, I think) but I had it nicely explained about how “Merry Christmas” isn’t just about Christmas here in Australia, it also means “merry end of the school year” and “merry summer holidays” and “merry nice long break from work if you’re lucky enough” and “merry next year’s going to be so much better than this year (even if this year rocked)”. It’s not supposed to exclude Jews or Muslims or fundamentalist Christians or Pagans or – well anybody. It’s just our end of year blessing.

So Merry Christmas. To all of you.

I apologise for not including some sort of spoiler with the last post. I do try not to give away any cool plot twists or other surprises when I talk about a movie, and I hope I didn’t in my little review, but I know I do tend to get over enthusiastic, so I hope I didn’t spoil it for anyone. Have had people coming back for their third and fourth viewing of the movie, it’s just so lovely to look at.

And now to the subject of the mysterious CD.

Beloved is a very musical person (unlike me). His parents met and fell in love at a music camp. He has aunties and uncles who play in orchestras. He’s one of those guys who can pick up any instrument and immediately play it. I am one of those [rare] people who can make a flute sound bad. Anyway, he’s just a little bit obsessed at the moment with the Uilleann pipes, which, if I have spelled it incorrectly, is also known as the Irish bagpipes. A very beautiful sounding instrument which was clearly designed by fairies.

I wish I could say that I had saved up the $1000 or so and bought Beloved a set of Christmas, but I didn’t. Instead I bought him 3 CDs of bagpipe music so that he could listen on his iPod on the way to work and have a dream about them in the daily traffic jam of the Monash tollway.

So the day came for present-wrapping. Poss and BF were away and Beloved was at work. All was safe for me to revert to my elf-self and get the job done. I found the electronic barometer that I’d stashed away months ago and the gym towel and the manual espresso machine that wasn’t a surprise at all because he had to carry it home from the city for me and I found two of the CDs.

What?

I searched again. I put most Chrissie presents in the basket drawers at the back of the wardrobe. It’s hard to get to them. You have to put the laundry basket out and squash down under the shirts and the lab coat I’ve had since form V and refuse to get rid of. Had to be there. I searched again. No CD.

Where could it be?

Although I’d bought all three CDs from the same place, they had arrived separately. I remembered getting this one. I remembered the sort of cardboardy packaging it had come in. I remembered taking it out and looking at it and feeling kind of smug because this was the best one. This one wasn’t just Irish folk music with Uilleann pipes, this was Christmas Irish folk music with Uilleann pipes and Beloved would put it on and we’d open the presents and feel all Christmassy and maybe we’d mix in a bit of Loreena McKennit and a bit of old Bing, you know, and all be round the table pretending it was snowing and that the flame robins were sitting on the mistletoe. But now I couldn’t find the bloody thing.

I searched again. I took all of the baskets out and looked under them. I rummaged amongst all the stuff I’d had piled up on the table and I plumbed the geological ages of stuff that have taken over my computer desk.

It was not there.

It was gone.

I spent half the day driving myself nuts, searching for it. I tried tricking myself and lulling myself into a false sense of security and having a good old girlie look but it wasn’t there.

I kept searching for it up until Christmas Eve, hating myself and finally having to accept that terrible thought that I’d thrown it out with the packaging it had come in. There was no use even searching the rubbish bin, it had been emptied and the garbos had collected it over a week ago. I wrapped the two CDs together and the next morning admitted to Beloved that the missing present had been for him and I was sorry. He wasn’t all that bothered. He’s that kind of guy.

Now.

The mysterious part?

Yesterday the CD arrived in the post.

Yeah. I know. Let’s not talk about it any more.

Next Christmas it’s going on. We’ll all listen. Maybe the flame robins will come back.

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