I wish you all a Merry Mammalian Christmas!

Date Published: 20-Dec-2012

Have I run out of cling film? No, I haven’t. There’s a spare roll in the cupboard under the sink, next to the spare roll of aluminium foil, the packet of sandwich bags and the ice cube bags.

The wine is sorted, no thanks to Michael Noonan. A good bottle of Chablis for the Snapper and an ancient Bordeaux for the cook. Oh, and a few lesser bottles as back-up, for that stage of proceedings when the thirst has fled upriver with the tastebuds.

There’s a bottle of Port for the stinky creamy Stilton, which I like on digestive biscuits. Must remember to get those digies. They can slip through the shopping net if you’re not careful.

A strong nutty Cheddar from Cheddar and a gooey ripe Normandy Brie, along with the brandy to flambé the pudding, make the brandy butter and provide a healthy slurp of Winter warmth to the cook.

He seems to crop up quite a lot, that cook, especially when there’s a slurp in the sentence.

Talking of slurp, in the fridge is the bottle of champagne that kicks off proceedings, consumed whilst opening presents in front of the fire on Christmas morning. By that time the turkey is in the oven and the cook is feeling pretty chilled.

In this house we choose sausage rolls as an accompaniment. Champagne and sausage rolls, representing exactly what my much-missed Dad taught me as a child: enjoy the fine things in life while really appreciating the simple ones.

Sausage rolls. Blimey. Haven’t got them yet.

What else have I forgotten?

Well there’s a small perfectly-formed tree in our living room, so I didn’t forget that. Cards are strewn around the planet, my presents long-since sent off to England, while a little pile of promises for the Snapper are sitting under the tree. They look fantastically raggedy and boy-wrapped, next to her perfectly pretty ribbon and bow creations.

At this time of year I’m driven by strong primal forces. Oooerrr, Matron! My natural propensity for list writing goes into overdrive, alongside an overpowering impulse to stockpile everything.

Maybe it’s because I was raised by Blitz generation parents, or maybe it’s because my father was raised by Holocaust refugees. In Jewish circles, the hoarding of toilet paper, over-cramming of fridges and cupboards is called ‘Holocaust mentality’, driven by a terror that I thankfully do not suffer.

No, I’m just a hairy mammal like you, and we’re all responding to our animal instincts to prepare our caves for hibernation. As mammals, we need to be warm, feast on high fat foods and feel safe enough to sleep until Spring. Yet instead we rush around in the cold and dark, becoming stressed out at the least apt time of year.

When we turn our backs on mammalian ways, we start to behave slightly crazily. Hence my own list-ticking neuroses, nurtured through many rural West of Ireland Winters.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.