On the 12th Day Of Christmas, My True Love Sent To Me... - a Reminder of When 'Twas the Season

 So apparently, today's the 12th day of Christmas. I say apparently because I never fully believed that there were actually twelve days of Christmas, aside from Christmases Eve and Day and Boxing Day (December 24th, 25th and 26th). I'd've thought it was just some silly carol that suggests that there are 12 Days of Christmas. But my family follows this tradition and that is; when it comes to the 12th Day, i.e. 5th January, now's the time to start taking the Christmas decorations down. I would've thought it was Boxing Day, but in our family, we have a few other traditions each Christmas and this holiday just gone was no exception.

For us, Christmas Day is family time and not only did I spend time with my parents and my older brother, but we were all invited to join some of our other relatives for Christmas Dinner. We had a mixture of turkey and pork and some vegetables and we had music associated with the holiday playing in the background. Sounds familiar doesn't it? In fact, we also saw the Queen's speech... sorry, force of habit, the King's speech and well done to Charles for his very first delivery. 

The tradition of exchanging gifts was also included. This is one of the gifts I received this Christmas just gone;

This, I feel, will come in pretty handy for future film projects, especially for those that require handheld and/or moving shots and whenever we shoot in cramped locations.

But that's not all.

Rick Wakeman recently quoted on Twitter that he and his family we going through a series of board games. In my family's case, we had charades - it was me that suggested it. I began the first round and the answer to my phrase was The Black Cauldron - and I think not many of my relatives were familiar with the movie. Even my mum asked me what it was. I of course answered. My brother pointed out how "obscure" most of my phrases were. Mind you, most of the family members who were present are a lot older than me. Not only that, but the songs I intimidated were not very commercial or well known. Those were Airline by Gary Numan and Subway Train by New York Dolls. But there was one clue where I think I may have most definitely confused my fellow players with; I was intimidating actions for Sonic The Hedgehog which is a film (where one pretends to hold a vintage camera with hand and roll the other hand next to it), a TV show (drawing a square with both hands) and of course a video game - now because it was a game to start with, I was pretending to roll some dice. In the end, I think it was my brother that got the answer right. No surprise if that's the case, due to the fond memories we had playing the games on the Megadrive. It was definitely him though who suggested that if I'm intimidating the actions of a game, that I pretend to use joysticks. Now that's something to think about.

Some of my relatives experimented with different ways of allowing us to guess - it was either my dad or one of my aunties that came with the idea of humming the signature tune for the media project we had to guess, whereas myself and some of the others used the traditional actions in relation to the words/syllables. But one thing I learned was an action that for some reason, I'd not come across during a game of charades before; the action where one waves their hands in one circle means "the whole thing". That therefore means one's going to intimidate the whole phrase.

During the morning, we experienced another tradition. Every Christmas morning, BBC Radio 2 has this thing about playing a selection of novelty/comedy songs, Disney songs and those associated with the Children's Favourites category; this programme known as Junior Choice. It used to be presented by Ed Stewart, but since his unfortunate death, it's been presented by Anneka Rice. She of course played Ronnie Hilton's A Windmill In Old Amsterdam, a long time favourite of mine (I've always loved that song!), Benny Hill's Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West and that song by Allan Sherman that's sung to the tune of Dance Of The Hours. She also played Hole In The Ground which was a loving tribute to the now late Bernard Cribbins. I also noticed that some theme tunes to children's TV shows were included in the playlist for some strange reason. I can recall listening to the radio whilst driving on the way to see my family and recognising the theme tune to the Magic Roundabout and a few others I recall seeing on Channel 4 back when I was young and had the habit of getting up early each Sunday morning. Note to self; there's something to consider. Next Christmas, I shall send in some requests. If TV theme tunes are included, maybe I'll consider the themes to Thunderbirds and Sonic The Hedgehog (SatAM version). I might even think about requesting the Rabbit song by Chas & Dave.

What else did I get up to during the season? Well, because I'm a writer, I somehow thought about challenging myself to write a full feature length script in just one hour. I had a go and, well, I was pretty unsuccessful. Time ran out just as I was roughly about less than a quarter of a way through. I have since completed a full first draft, though due to the nature of the challenge, it was not neat and that's usually the thing about first drafts. They are never exactly the best versions of a screenplay. I will of course re-draft the script. But let this be a lesson to script-writers; it's usually best that you could get away with writing scripts for short films, but with features, one should allow themselves more time.

So let us enjoy 2023.