Failed At My Own Topic Title

As it’s near Christmas, I thought I’d do a bit of a Christmassy topic. To be honest, I’m not really sure how Christmassy naughty but nice is, but Lisabet got it, so maybe I’m on the right track. Or at least, on a better track than my original thoughts, which were “Jingle Balls” and “I Wonder What’s Inside Santa’s Underpants”.

At one point, I was even going to go with a pairing of the two – they seem to fit nicely, after all – but in the end I’m glad I stuck with something safe and vague. Especially as people might not want to write about Christmas. I mean, there are so many people out there that hate Christmas, now, that sometimes I feel like the odd one out for loving it.

Because I do. Oh, how I love it. I love it so much I could have sex with it, if Christmas were not so reluctant to have sex with me. I see Christmas over there, giving me the mean eye, drinking its fancy cocktail while chatting up some other, far hotter girl with better clothes and more taste.

Though in all honesty, I’m not sure why I’m talking about Christmas as though it doesn’t love me, when in truth, it actually does. I know it does, because every year it does something lovely, and it’s always made that much sweeter by memories of Christmas past.

Like that one Christmas, when I watched the TV movie Sole Survivor, staring Billy Zane.

And yeah, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking – she’s making a dumb joke there. It’s Charlotte. She always makes those bait and switch type of dumb jokes, where she sets people up for some splendid thing and then pulls the rug out from under them with brussel sprouts.

But no no no – I’m telling the truth. Honest. One of my fondest memories of recent Christmases is of watching the very stupid and probably shit Sole Survivor. And it is rubbish, believe you me. It’s based on a Dean Koontz novel, for God’s sake. It has people controlling planes with their minds. It stars Billy Zane.

And yet I can never forget how much I enjoyed watching it with the hubster, or how many brilliant flights of fancy it gave me over the Christmas period. How my head filled up with all kinds of new story ideas and crazy imaginings. Usually with Billy Zane being naked at the centre of all of them but even so. I can’t be blamed for that unfortunate side-effect. And I mean, it’s not like Billy Zane doesn’t look good naked. Even when he’s kind of fat, he’s totally hot and like the illicit love child of Marlon Brando and Marlon Brando.

But I digress. About Billy Zane’s nakedness. When I really wanted to talk about the power of the imagination, and how strongly that can affect someone’s life and memories in the same way that real things do. I spent that festive season feverishly writing a load of old nonsense, and after all – isn’t that what Christmas is about? Hours spent in a darkened room, alone, hammering at a keyboard until your temples split?

Probably not, but I look back on it fondly, even so. I also look back fondly on the Christmas when the hubster bought me a region one DVD player and a copy of an as yet unavailable Donnie Darko. And the year my brother mananged to get his hands on an old rental copy of the undisputed masterpiece and my favourite movie of all time: My Demon Lover.

Because apparently my Christmases are all about watching things I adore, rather than all that brotherly love and peace to all men malarkey. Though I will say this – I was filled with brotherly love that year, and I’m usually pretty peaceful when watching something from my past that fills me with nostalgia and joy and love for everything.

And that’s what Christmas is about, for me. The past. My favourite presents are always things that remind of the great pleasures and wonders of my life, like those little horror stories my school library had, and the hubster found and bought from a collector. Oh, how I remember the chalk circle the hero made on the ground, to keep the witch away!

I always remember the strangest things, from books and films and TV shows that probably don’t matter anything to other people. Other people probably remember kissing their children on Christmas Eve or hugging their husband on Boxing Day. But I don’t. I remember those times when my friends and family and my beloved husband cared enough about what’s in my head to give me something that says: remember when the witch tried to get into the chalk circle, and you were so scared?

I do. I do. Thank you.