The Indo Irish Christmas

So, I know its March now, but I'm catching up!
Christmas this year was great! First off, Johnny and Lindsey (my brother and his wife) came home for a week before Christmas, they were in great form, dealing with the cold! Mum and Dad were made up, all of us home at once! We had ‘Christmas Dinner’ early, about a week before the actual day. The whole family was there, and Granny arrived later too.
Johnny and Lindsey were due to leave on Christmas Eve, so they could be back in San Diego for Christmas with her family, and Sid was due to arrive the day before Christmas Eve. I was very excited, I had not seen Sid since my abrupt departure from India in October and I missed him terribly. I couldn’t wait for him to meet the family, see where I grew up and generally introduce him to Ireland.
I called him as he was leaving for Mumbai, the first leg of his journey. He was to fly to Dubai, then London then Dublin. He made it to Dubai. He went to check in to the London flight and was told his visa wasn’t right and he would not be let into the UK, even though he was a transit passenger and he had transited through London a few weeks before, this time he needed a different visa. Aggggghhhhh!
So he went to Frankfurt, the Germans are not so anal with the transit visas. At this point I was distraught. I was afraid he would be sent back to India, or get stuck in Germany or worse get arrested for being in Germany with no visa! But no need for the distress, he arrived safe and whole in Dublin only twelve hours later than expected. After a long fretful wait in the arrivals hall, imagining all kinds of terrible things with the immigration authorities, we had a happy, tearful reunion!
Unfortunately due to the giggery pokery with the flights, his bag got left in Frankfurt. (Has anyone seen ‘Meet the parents’?) So we had to swing by Tescos on the way home, it was late and tescos is open 24 hours, to pick up some essentials, fully expecting the bag to arrive on the next day. Ha!
Anyway, he was here and that was all that mattered to me! He had brought a little bit of Indian life with him, we realised when we had no water the next morning! The water was gone for different reasons than in India, the pipes were frozen outside. We got on with it anyway, and started to relax into Christmas, while also making numerous calls trying to locate his bag and trying to convince him that a shopping centre was the last place we wanted to go on Christmas Eve morning. (He wanted to get some clothes) The weather was Baltic! Icy cold with roads to match. I had fun telling him that everything will be closed on Christmas day, he didn’t believe a word! He couldn’t grasp the concept that everything would shut down, even the airport, The Airport! How? Why?
Christmas Day dawned bright clear and beautiful, there was a heavy white frost that coated everything and turned Kildare into an Icy wonderland! We had no water again, but no matter we can get by! We went off down to Granny's house, as is our custom, for tea, cocktail sausages, brown bread and something stronger. The place was packed with family, and Sid did a great job as the newcomer. Mark, my mildly autistic nephew, spotted Sid immediately, he stood in front of him, pointed his finger at him and asked the room in a loud voice, “Who is that man?”.
I told him, this is Sid, he is my boyfriend and he is from India. Mark has a huge amount of curiosity, this combined with his loud voice and lack of social skills made for a very funny encounter. Sid was solid as Mark bombarded him with questions such as “are you christian or muslim?” and “what are the main differences between Arabs and Indians, skin tone, religion or culture?”.
What do you say to that, on Christmas morning in a foreign country in the bosom of someone else's family! I have to hand it to Mark, he asked all of the questions everybody wanted the answers to but were afraid to ask. Intelligent questions too. He would have been there for hours had his mum not come to rescue Sid! Mark came by the house later in the visit to question Sid some more about India and the world in general. As I said he is an intensely curious young man!
Anyway, we left Grannys house, full to bursting of sausages and brown bread, paid a visit to the graveyard, as is not our custom, but we did it anyway as I had made wreaths for Grandad and Granny Swords. Turns out it was Sids first visit to a graveyard, he enjoyed it immensely! It is a pretty graveyard.
We arrived home, and dinner was started. It didn’t get going though, as the electricity went with a bang, leaving us ovenless. Damn.
The turkey was half cooked, having been on since morning. We waited and tried to find out what happened. We discovered, through phone calls, ESB maintenance van spottings and gossip that the transformer in the field next door blew up. damn damn. The word was that they had to go into Dublin to get another one, the roads were icing up fast and it would be at least four hours before the power was back.
Luckily my sister, who lives next door, still had power. So after several trips across the garden with various oven dishes of turkey, spuds and stuffing, the dinner was ready! There were Mum, Dad, Richie, Penny, Donny( Penny’s Brother), Granny, Sid and Myself. We had a lovely candle-light dinner and we were mildly disappointed when the power came back half way through! Siobhan and family arrived just in time for desert, as is their custom and we all exchanges gifts. The kids were in great form, and we were in great form, the wine was flowing along with the laughter.
It will go down as one of the best Christmas Days!