‘My Worst Christmas’ – Staff Stories
Another year of restrictions on our Christmas celebrations has led to many of you, perhaps rather hyperbolically, to call this the ‘worst Christmas’ ever. Well, we’ve got news for you: it isn’t…
Here are some memories of horrendous Christmas past from your teachers, to help you get things in perspective this year.
Mrs Botley and the cat hangover
I had shared a glass or three of Bailey’s on ice with my sister before heading off to Midnight Mass at the village church. We rather stupidly left a balloon glass of Bailey’s on the hearth. Oliver the Cat decided to finish off the rather tasty beverage – and then proceeded to leave rather unpleasant gifts for us around the living room…..thankfully Santa still managed to deliver the presents – despite the minefield left by the cat!
Mr Allen and the Christmas ‘lock-in’
Whilst sitting my A-levels I was employed by HMP Chelmsford as the chapel organist. Having agreed to play for a service at 8.30am on Christmas Day I ended up spending a little more time than I’d bargained for at Her Majesty’s pleasure. There was, unfortunately, an incident in another wing of the prison that meant the entire site had to be locked down; nobody was allowed to enter or leave the block they were in – including the then 17-year-old organist! Whilst I always enjoy the opportunity to play the organ at Christmas time, spending the next five hours in a small ‘chapel’ with 45 inmates, the chaplain, six prison guards and no natural light wasn’t quite the Christmas Day I’d had in mind. With no way to let my family know that I would be late for lunch, or to contact the other church I was supposed to go onto next to play for a service, I had to stay and make small talk with the company I had. Let’s just say that the Brussels Sprouts weren’t quite the crisp al dente I’d become accustomed to!
Ms Stone’s electronic reward
I was at university and all my friends had started getting these really cool new-fangled inventions – mobile phones. I begged my parents for one for Christmas and, despite their apparent refusal to purchase the much longed for mobile, in due course an appropriately shaped box appeared under the tree.
Christmas morning arrived and I was bursting with excitement to open my shiny new phone. I’d already made a list of who I was going to call on it from my bedroom (something I’d never been able to do before because we had one phone in our house which was firmly attached to the wall in the hall way). Anyway, you can imagine my disappointment when I unwrapped the gift and it was, in fact, an electric toothbrush. If that was not tragic enough, what my dad said next, sent me over the edge. He told me that they had bought me a phone but when I casually revealed that I was overdrawn at the bank by approximately £2000 after only one term away, he had taken it back to the shop and swapped it for the toothbrush. The final nail on my festive coffin was the proclamation that I need not ever ask for a phone again as the only way I would ever be getting a phone was when I had a job and could pay for one myself.
Ms Condliffe and the doctor dilemma
here are so many positives about having a family of doctors… most importantly, we have 24 hour advice, although this becomes problematic when mum disagrees with sister, whose husband also has a contentious point of view… then in comes dad with his opinion! Despite such incredible love, arguments can become inevitable at times!
There are a couple of other negatives… we have spent the last 15 years having Christmas Day on a variety of dates. 21st, 27th, even early January once! With brothers and sisters having to work over Christmas more often than not, Christmas Day becomes the day when the 12 of us can be together!
An additional issue with a medical family is the potential for nasty bugs and viruses being brought home from the hospital. Our dear Will, my brother-in-law and legend, brought back a particularly aggressive norovirus one year… Sufficed to say, the turkey was sad and lonely, the pigs in blankets lay sadly dejected in the corner… and without too much detail to add, the bathrooms were the busiest rooms in the house.
Merry Christmas all!
Mr Terry’s culinary farce
I was about 26 so maybe 2006, I had just starting my first teaching job at Stowe School after being an accountant, I was loving my new job but was, I have to say, missing the money I was earning as an accountant. Therefore, I suggested to Mum and Dad that instead of buying presents for everyone I would buy the food! I ordered a half-stilton (that was the desert) and a five in one bird! This was basically, and I can’t really remember exactly, something like, a deboned grouse, inside a deboned duck (I will stop with the deboned now), inside a pheasant, inside a goose and then inside a turkey, It was basically a 25kg lump of poultry! So I drove back home to Kent on the 23rd only to arrive to a phone call from the butcher to say I hadn’t picked up the stuffed bird I had ordered! They kindly agreed that I could pick it up from a local pub where they would leave it on Christmas eve, so I had to drive 5 hours back up to collect the bird and go back home – lots of joy!
I do that and then I get back to find out that my dog at the time, Banana (yellow-ish greyhound with a long nose – Banana???), had attacked/munched much of the half-stilton and had been to the vet after copiously vomiting everywhere with very stinky Stilton flavoured puke (all over the house) and had penicillin poisoning from the blue cheese!
When I got back I then find out that the 8 members of the extended family from Liverpool and Warrington, have pulled out of coming down for Christmas because they had really bad flu – that was all we had to worry about back then – the flu! Dad then came down with the flu as well and didn’t get out of bed for Christmas Day, it was a bad year, and so myself, Mum and Sister sat down to 25kgs of roasted birds and got through about a 500g if that – we all know Christmas Dinner is about the pigs in blankets, stuffing and roast potatoes!!!
Fortunately, Dad was much better the following day and we had, and for the next week, copious amounts of toasted five bird and stilton sandwiches! Mum had cut off the half of he stilton that the bloody dog hadn’t eaten! The problem was that by the time I needed to head back to school for the start of term, the stilton was pretty ripe! The mistake I made was that I had been feeding my Sister’s hamster with the rind if the stilton, which by the time I went back to school was pretty much 100% pure penicillin! He did really love it though!!! Yup, the stupid thing dropped dead! I have never been forgiven and can guarantee that my sister will bring it up on the 25th this year!
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