The Maisiúcháin Massacre

Quick post to document our Christmas and New Year. Not sure what makes some traditions persistent, some passing and how we choose the new ones, but we struck a nice balance of old, new and forgotten this year. Sometimes the new ones choose you but I'm really hoping we don't get a repeat of the fallen Christmas Tree / Maisiúcháin Massacre next year. The children would never get over it. Food again featured prominently and while its volume was similar to previous festive seasons, special effort was made this year to pick our battles in terms of the recipes, the ingredients and the cooking methods. Some of the best breakfasts, lunches, dinners we've had, all in the one week. Christmas and NYE dinners were highlights. As the girls get a bit older, it's nice to re-discover the sophistication of candlelit wine dinners with them - even if it's just kiddy wine. They're great company and seem to enjoy the ritual of overeating in company as much as their parents. Not so sure about the wistfully twisted preparation of those meals though, that seemed to concern them a little during the epic pause between courses on Christmas day triggered by a needy nut roast with notions.

Photos in vaguely chronological order through December. Enjoy.

A green stone lying sideways in a ditch

 On her way to a session

Cult Of Chubby Robin

 Christmas Recital in Westland Row - the music that came out was magical

Will daddies ever learn to just appreciate the moment?

That's better. Front Row Leftish, Front Row Rightish

One sack in, one sack out.
Cormac The Frog on his way to the charity shop. I'm oddly terrified of eggy membranes.  

Christmas Means Toys

 The true wonder of Christmas 

First day of the school holidays - how many more sleeps? Cheap Sheep. 

Dear Mutella. If you need a Milky Bar Kid equivalent for your product, get in touch

A little one for cutting tobacco

Can you un-inside this out for me?

Warm pillowsoft cinnamon rolls straight from the oven, piping hot coffee. Happy Christmas morning! Hello WheelArches!

Kind Of Blue

The Ladies

All The Ladies 

Lots of books. 

Doggy. Laois.  

You'd always struggle to get her to tighten the belt of her box-pleated coat

 The Slieve Blooms

Warming up the NYE Raclette

A water-hen screeched in the bog

JuJu Buffet goes classy. 

Toffifee Draughts won best in competition at the JuJu Buffet. Highly recommended - the pleasure reward centre of the brain lights up like a Christmas tree when you gleefully take out your opponent's piece and promptly pop it in your mouth for an immediate "good dog!" sugar reward. The Marshmallow Shove(1) nearly shut the place down. No one thought it important to mention that Queensbury rules state that it's only the number of marshmallows you can fit in to your mouth that counts. Full consumption deep, deep, deep into the large intestine is not a technical requirement. So anyways, bad things happen when you lash down 16 oversized mashmallows into "the bag" on top of the complete, half grilled, half digested contents of your fridge. One side of the potato-pits was definitely white with frost. Subsequent calls from his melodion were heard across the wild bog. The cleverer contestants spat and continued relatively unabated. I will be back next year. Kit-Kat Jenga photographs well but needs work to make it as entertainingly cut-throat as the draughts. 

 A hole in Heaven's gable

From eating books to window licking them 

This came out of nowhere but as it's post-panto we suspect it's a panto inspired pose

Echoes Of Connemara

A Christmas Childhood

One side of the potato-pits was white with frost –

How wonderful that was, how wonderful!

And when we put our ears to the paling-post

The music that came out was magical.

The light between the ricks of hay and straw

Was a hole in Heaven’s gable. An apple tree

With its December-glinting fruit we saw –

O you, Eve, were the world that tempted me.

To eat the knowledge that grew in clay

And death the germ within it! Now and then

I can remember something of the gay

Garden that was childhood’s. Again.

The tracks of cattle to a drinking-place,

A green stone lying sideways in a ditch,

Or any common sight, the transfigured face

Of a beauty that the world did not touch.

My father played the melodion

Outside at our gate;

There were stars in the morning east

And they danced to his music.

Across the wild bogs his melodion called

To Lennons and Callans.

As I pulled on my trousers in a hurry

I knew some strange thing had happened.

Outside in the cow-house my mother

Made the music of milking;

The light of her stable-lamp was a star

And the frost of Bethlehem made it twinkle.

A water-hen screeched in the bog,

Mass-going feet

Crunched the wafer-ice on the pot-holes,

Somebody wistfully twisted the bellows wheel.

My child poet picked out the letters

On the grey stone,

In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland,

The winking glitter of a frosty dawn.

Cassiopeia was over

Cassidy’s hanging hill,

I looked and three whin bushes rode across

The horizon — the Three Wise Kings.

And old man passing said:

‘Can’t he make it talk –

The melodion.’ I hid in the doorway

And tightened the belt of my box-pleated coat.

I nicked six nicks on the door-post

With my penknife’s big blade –

there was a little one for cutting tobacco.

And I was six Christmases of age.

My father played the melodion,

My mother milked the cows,

And I had a prayer like a white rose pinned

On the Virgin Mary’s blouse.

Patrick Kavanagh