No_Christmas

I spent an hour looking for the key to the padlock that holds shut the cupboard in which I keep my action figures.

An hour.

Eventually, I had to use a knife from the kitchen to unscrew the screw that holds the handle of the door - around which the chain, which is threaded through the padlock - in place, in order to slide off the chain.

Guess what I just spotted, lying atop the mouse mat. Guess how long it's been there.

As long as I've been here.

It's six months to the day since Everything Changed.

NO CHRISTMAS KISS THIS YEAR

(Or: How The Semi-Naked Chef Saved Christmas)

By Matthew Craig.

So. Here we are.

It's Boxing Day, officially. But not only that. It's exactly six months to the day since I came home from University. For good, this time.

Six months on the Dole. Six months of being overdrawn. Six months of trying to find a new direction.

Six months manning this website, if you can believe it.

900 visitors. I don't know how many of them are unique (i.e.: people who come once and never return). Still, it's pretty good for someone with no experience of running such a thing.

It's a sobering thought - or it would be if I drank. Six months of living week to week, desperately urging New Comics Day to come around again. Six months of checking the same websites, over and over. I figure I must have logged about as much web time over the last six months as in the two preceeding years.

How We Were: the image from the front page of the site, six long months ago...

That's a lot of time.

If I have to be honest, I've wasted a lot of time, and not just on the Net.

I could have got a job. I could have got a bar job the Monday after I got back (bad back or not). I could have paid off the bank and the Medical Research Council twice over by now, but I haven't.

I could have gone on a cheap holiday. I could have gone to Scotland, to the Fringe, but I didn't. Sometimes, it seems like the last six months have been utterly empty.

But.

There's the few things I have done. This website, for one. Learning to cook is another. Helping to look after the Mother since she got sick, too - even if she refuses to cut down on the demon weed.

I've done little things. It's not been a holiday.

This burst of creativity is one thing I am proud of, more or less. I may not have an awful lot to say, and I wish I could make more of the silly little pieces, but it's there. It's me. And it's on the web, for all to see.

And they are. Seeing it, I mean. Well, You are.

Most people come to this site for two reasons:

1. They're either a flesh-and-blood friend, or a relative, who has been sent the URL in an email from me since I came home in June.
2. They've read something of mine on the Internet, on a message board or whatever, and have linked through from the URL in my signature

Hello to all WEF'ers and SMB'ers, by the way.

There have been some...odd visitors. One person came in looking for wallpaper swatches, another looking for wallpaper featuring Amelie, from the movie of the same name. What they thought when they saw my mug grinning out at them from all over the screen, I can't fathom.

The person looking for images from Amelie must have wondered what part I played in the movie.

Thinking about it, there are all sorts of keywords and phrases that might lead you here. "Wallpaper" is one, obviously. "Matthew Craig," too.

I really, really hope that nobody of a legal persuasion comes in here. I'm scared that I've breached about a dozen copyrights already.

I guess it's an ego thing: I want people to come and see the site, but I kind of only want them to be people who I know are going to say positive things about it. Which is why I shook like a leaf when I posted the link to Fanboy Confessions on my favourite comics forum: I was afraid that I was going to get lots of negative e-mail, where I wanted there to be lots of applause.

The reality of it, of course, is much worse.

Three people have sent me mail. Three out of nearly one hundred readers. And I had to ask two of them what they thought.

I don't know whether that's a good thing or a bad thing. All the other comics posted at the same time have had lots of positive comments (I should know: I read all of them), except mine.

I don't think I should wind myself up about it too much. These are things you shouldn't do for attention, after all.

But still...

*SLAP!*

That's better.

So, while I enjoy having a regular audience for my neuroses, anecdotes, lechery and tomfoolery, it can be pretty scary to put yourself at risk like this.

I suppose it's better than sitting at home on your own...

LATER...

So, it's 4.30 on Boxing Day afternoon. There's fruitcake and pud still to be devoured, and we're down to the mini Mars Bars and Chive Pringles. What sort of Christmas Day did I have?

Answer: a fucking great one.

Slept in until about 9.30, a full three hours later than I usually get up on Christams morn. The sainted Mother, eager to open what was left of her pressies (after opening a box of liqueurs the night before), came in to tell me that it was time to cook the bird.

The big liar.

Staggering downstairs with cotton in my mouth (I had somehow managed to eat half a sock during the night) and turkey on my mind, I went to the tree to get the parents their pressies.

And saw two large boxes with no names on.

Now, this was a revelation: I had been told that I wasn't getting anything for Christmas, because of the Mammy's sickness and the Daddy's lack of car. Secretly, I had lamented this, because after the fifteen months I've had, a nice Christmas was something I had been hoping for.

Be careful what you wish for.

So, I doled out the presents. Sweaters and car mats for Da. Hospital stuff for Ma. Stinky soap and sweaters for me. Nifty stuiff from the grandchildren and my siblings.

Then we came to my presents.

I had tried, this year. I bought the Mammy a throw for her bed and a dragon that you put together out of die-cut balsa wood.

I think she liked them. But she noticed a pattern in the gifts: they all had to do with her (rapidly approaching) hospital appointment. Which was fair enough, I suppose. For my part, I just thought she might appreciate something other than crossword books and slippers this year.

The Daddy got a Clarkson Christmas from me: a book and a video.

A bit unimaginitive from me, but then, I left it all a bit late. Amazingly, he actually watched the video before he went to bed.

It has all the handling of a larger, more expensive trundle-bike, but is cheaper...than a night out with the Osmonds....vrrrrooooooommmmm!

I couldn't believe it when they offered me the two unlabelled boxes. In hindsight, I should have known that they wouldn't let me down. That, and I should ahve known they would lie to me, the buggers...

Of course, I didn't think they would give me the best Christmas presents I've had in about ten years.

The firsy was a Spider-Man torch and torchpen set. Superb. One shines a Spider signal on the wall or wherever, the other has a light in the base of the pen, so I can write, even in the darkness. Should come in handy when my parents see the electric bill...

The other thing they got me was this:

A digital camera.

Fucking Hell!

I've been gasping for one of these for ages. It takes pictures and short bits of video (I have one of me winking - that's WINKING), and you just plug it into the computer and upload it into hard memory. And it's fucking beautiful.

Takes a bit of time to get the hang of it. But when you do, it's superb. Here's a small gallery:

YYYY-M-C-A! Everybody!..

We grow small footballs in the back yard...

The strong, silent type

So, I had fun with this, you betcha. I tried to put together a photostory with some of my Spidey figures (hence the preamble), but I was taking the shots from way too close. I'll do better next time.

So, everything was going according to plan. Nifty gifties, and joy spread throughout the house.

Then the cooking started.

The turkey was a fresh one, and a fine fowl it was, too. 7Kg, and meaty as hell. All those growth hormones didn't go to waste. The Mammy took the giblets and binned them, and left me to stuff the thing.

Now. I've never stuffed a bird before, right (as readers of Fanboy Confessions will no doubt attest)? No one told me how it was supposed to feel: bloody weird.

I'll just say this: no more @n@l fi$tin6 videos for me...

So, stuffing as much of the bird as I could bear to insert myself into, and rubbing the rest into its skin, I wrapped it up and stuck it into the oven.

Things went downhill from here.

The sainted Mother volunteered to prepare the veg for the dinner - in fact, if I hadn't agreed to this, I probably would have been the dinner - so I got out the sprouts (fresh; not the frozen ones I had bought in a 2 kilogram bag the week before!), the carrots and the sacred Potatoes, and she proceeded to shear and slice them.

Astute observers will have noticed that there has been no mention of parsnips, easily my third favourite vegetable. There is a very good reason for this.

We (the Daddy and I) bought the parsnips on Sunday, and put them in the fridge when we got home. Some of you may be thinking, "Ooh! You shouldn't do that!" You're probably right. But it gets worse.

After arriving home with the bird and some miscellaneous frozen veg on Monday morning, I reached into the freezer for the appropriate basket. The parsnips were inside.

For reasons best known to himself, the Daddy had decided to move the parsnips from the fridge to the freezer. Hoping against hope, I moved them back to the top compartment.

I needn't have bothered.

When I got the parsnips out to cook...well, let's just say that to call them "limp" would be to understate the matter a great deal. I had to check them to see if they said "Made in Taiwan" on the side. They were useless, and subsequently disposed of.

By this point, the potatoes were ready to be cooked. Bolied before roasting was the plan.

On taking the potatoes out of the pressure cooker, the plan had to be changed. And swiftly, for the potatoes were, to put it bluntly, spongy.

With no time to spare, and no way of cooking the frozen roasters that foresight had demanded I buy, I improvised (with a little help from a popular cookbook): I threw in a knob of margarine and a tablespoon or two of double cream. Salt and Pepper and a damn good mashing later, and we had our Christmas Spud.

Dinner was saved!

Until.

By the time the potatoes were ready (and in the oven to heat up a bit), the carrots and sprouts were ready to take out of the pressure cooker. Except, the pressure cooker hadn't delivered any pressure (as indicated by a doodad atop the lid). The Mammy opened the lid and had a look at the veg, and decided that the seal had failed, and they should be resealed, and given a couple more minutes.

At this point, I heard a little voice say, "add more water, Craigy!" Would that I had taken any notice of it. For two minutes later, we Smelled the Burning.

The carrots, the sprouts and indeed the pressure cooker itself were burnt and stinking. A quick heave, and the lot went out the kitchen window.

A brief moment of panic ensued. Then, when I had come to my senses, I remembered the frozen sprouts. A dash to the kettle, then a dash to the freezer, and a final dash to the hob, and we had Another Veg, to go with our improvised mash. We sat down to dinner at 4.15, a full twenty minutes late.

Amazingly, the turkey not only survived the extra time in the oven, it seemed to thrive off it. It melted in the mouth, the stuffing massage made it brown nicely, and there was lots of it. The sprouts were perfect, and the mash...well, it was delightful.

You see, you Jaded Cynics: there are miracles at Christmas time, even in the 21st century.

DIEEEEE, DEVIL BIIIIRRRRRRRRDD!!!!!

You know, I had pictures on the digicam of all this madness. But I accidentally deleted them.

So, after six months on the Dole, away from anything approaching a normal life, I've learned one thing, above all else:

I could never be a short-order cook.

Enjoy the rest of the Holidays.

Craig Family Christmas Dinner, taken using the timer - hadn't quite got the hang of it by this point in the day...

Matthew Craig, Happy Half-Year Anniversary To Me, December 26th, 2001.

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