THE CHRISTMAS STORY THAT NEVER WAS

I did have plans…

You know I did…

But, once again, time seems to have slipped away from me, and I never seemed to quite get around to actually doing it, and now we’re into the realms of a story that never was and quite possibly never will be, either…

Ah… Once again I’ve landed you slap, bang into a middle of a thought when you haven’t got the faintest clue as to what I am talking about.

I do that a lot, I’m told. Pick up a thought or a conversation I was having, perhaps only with myself, a good ten, twenty or thirty minutes earlier, and continue with the thread as if everyone else ought to know exactly what it is that I’m going on about, and we haven’t missed a beat in the intervening eon or twelve.

I’m sure that one day I might actually run into one of my fellow students whom I haven’t seen in a quarter of a century or more and start off by saying “So, anyway… What do you think of that?”

Of course, you’re clever enough people, I know that you are…

You’re shrewd enough to make the connection between today’s post title and whatever it is that I’m burbling on about and put two and two together and come up with a fair approximation of what is the right answer, without me having to underscore it all with some rambling explanation of something that you were never really bothered about not knowing about in the first place.

But, just in case you’re not…

I’m talking about a tale I wanted to tell for this year’s run up to Christmas. If you’re one of those precious few readers who come here every day to see what the old fool is burbling on about today, you might remember that I was fretting about this as early as September (http://m-a-w-h.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/christmas-yet-to-come.html).

I had a few options in mind, of course, but in previous years, my little written advent calendar “gift” has never been the most successful of my annual “little projects” even though I’m daft enough to still find myself sitting around wondering whether people will think that I’m trying to do something rather wonderful, or just go “meh!” and vote with their feet...?

Nevertheless, I was fully prepared to give it another whirl in the face of the usual abject indifference, and at least make some attempt to come up with “something” else to amuse you with in the run up to your own festive revels…

But then I did nothing about it, and September turned into October, and October turned into November, and there still remained nothing at all in my mental “What to write about in the run up to Chrimbletide” file.

It’s just not happening, is it? Things just keep getting in the way. Evenings meant to be spent alone and therefore full of creative opportunity are cancelled, insomnia leaves me far too tired to think, or actually sit down and write, and days intended to be spent at the keyboard are spent doing “other things” instead…

Such is the general glut of “stuff to do” which lurks around every Chrimbletide.

On November the tenth I had one post-it note covered in scribbles and nothing else whatsoever in the literary bank, and I found myself once more thinking rather tetchily “I’m supposed to construct a coherent storyline out of that…?”

Hey, you lovely – if not lucky - people! You know I’m lying. This year’s Christmas story starts tomorrow, even though there are only four parts written (at the time of writing this piece) and I don’t actually have an ending yet…

Or a middle…

And the start’s still in a state of flux, too…

Oh, it all might go so horribly wrong. Just an unexpected incident, or a simple case of writer’s block and I could end up with ever such a lot of egg on my face. Why on Earth do I bother putting myself through all of this turmoil for no very good reason...? I guess this is what they mean by living on the edge…?

But I hope that we all end up enjoying the journey.

Merry Christmas (when it comes, and if ever we get to it).