The Night Before the Christmas Before I Was Married & Other Festive Tales Read Free Page A

wrapped around my foot the only thing keeping me from falling two stories and landing on my head. And Rudolph? Well, instead of lighting up he was swinging and hitting me repeatedly in the face. My wife was inside the house and I was shouting and maybe I was screaming. When I eventually told the story to my friends I didn’t mention the screaming.

    I could see frost on the garden as it spun underneath me as I hung, twisting in the air, molested by a shabby reindeer.

    ‘What do you want? I’m trying to get ready, we’re going out in half an hour.’

    I could hear her through the bedroom window. She sounded the same upside down as she did the right way up.

    Dear Santa, I have been a very good boy this year, please don’t let me become the person they remember as Reindeer Man.

    LOCAL MAN FOUND WITH HEAD UP REINDEER’S ARSE.

    Children would make pilgrimages to the place where Rudolph nearly bought the big one.

    ‘No, darling. Santa was worried but it was all right in the end – Rudolph could fly but the Reindeer Man couldn’t.’

    I kept thinking of ice skaters and how they keep their balance after spinning around over and over. My memory was telling me that they tried to keep focussed on one fixed point so I tried it and the number on door 81 became my focus. Really I was just trying to keep from thinking about how old the cable was and how it would snap any second.

    I started in the loft looking for decorations except I knew we didn’t have any because we’d just moved into the house two months ago. My wife is at the bottom of the ladder saying, ‘Just go to the shop and buy a tree. If you wait for five minutes I’ll come with you and help you choose baubles.’

    Notice the careful positioning of the word ‘help’.

    So, of course, I ignored her and started rummaging, a medium sized torch shoved into my mouth, wedging it so far open that my jaw ached and saliva ran down at the corners. It was a treasure trove up there but for every box I opened, for every neatly wrapped nugget of a forgotten holiday season I found I was greeted with a thump, a bump or a grump from the Grinch downstairs.

    Dear Santa, although I have not been a particularly good boy this year I was wondering whether you would see your way clear to leaving me a ball gag and restraints. They aren’t for me so I thought you may make an exception.

    It was then I found him. My soon to be nemesis. Dusty. Forgotten. Rudolph.

    I carefully carried him down the ladder to the landing, put him lightly on the ground and began dusting him off. It elicited exactly the response I expected.

    ‘What the bloody hell is that?’ screamed my current nemesis.

    On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me; three blazing rows, two dirty looks and a promise there’d be no sex for me.

    There were these carol singers in Australia who had gone out to do their thing and two of them had died of sunstroke. Perfectly normal thing to do at that time of year but they got carried away, filled with the spirit of the season and that was it, game over. This sort of thing happens every day, we just don’t expect it to happen to us.

    Rudolph had proved to be heavier than I imagined and it took me some time to wrestle the damn thing step by step, hauling it towards its appointment on the roof. By the time we reached our destination I was panting from the effort, I put him down by my side and bent over, my hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath and… well you know the rest.

    Dear Santa, thank you for the lovely flowers. And the grapes. The doctors and nurses have been wonderful and although the injuries I suffered were extensive only one of them is permanent. As I fell, only the only thing that stopped my face from hitting the pavement was a certain red-nosed friend of yours. I have been in touch with my lawyer who says I have a good case against you as I was erecting an effigy in your honour, thereby working for your, therefore you are liable as an