Punch (36.1859)

A CHRISTM

MR. PUNCH,—You were good enough last week to insert in your
pages my lamentations on the downfal of Christmas. They have
been, I regret to say, fulfilled to the very letter. We have all by this
time been martyrised in the matter of Christmas-boxes; and I, for one,
have suffered very severely from having been obliged to close my esta-
blishment on Boxing Day. I don't know, by the. bye, what these extra
holidays are coming to. First of all, Christmas Day comes on a
Thursday; then it is, 'Oh, you'd much better close on Friday and
Saturday, and give your people a holiday.' Very good. It was done.
Then it falls on a Friday; ' Of course, you close on Saturday.' Of
course. And now it comes on Saturday, and I had to close on Mon-
day, and was considerably inconvenienced thereby.

"But these are minor matters, my dear Mr. Punch. The greatest
blow and most signal discomfiture I have suffered was under the
shadow of my own roof, amongst my household gods, and was, in fact,
my Christmas dinner.

" Now, you must know, in the first place, that I am blessed with a
curiously large family of brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles,
and all the rest of it. My own personal family, so to speak, consists
of myself, Mrs. Grumbler, my eldest boy (a fine youth of about five-
and-twenty, with luxuriant whiskers, perpetually smoking, and with a
taste for port wine beyond his years), my eldest daughter Sophia
(whom I have introduced to you in my previous letter in connection
with a little mistletoe episode), and my second daughter Jane, and a
small boy who is immaterial to the story, being still in the nursery.

"I am fond of having my family about me on Christmas Day, and
always do the orthodox indigestible dinner business. I procure the
1 at test sirloin of beef which money will buy; I spoil my turkey by
boiling him; and, furthermore, deliver myself with assumed cheerful-
ness to the monster Indigestion, as represented by plum-pudding. I
make my rooms perfectly dark and chilly with great damp boughs, and
endeavour, in short, to persuade myself, in the orthodox way, that it is
a highly jolly affair altogether, that I am an old English gentleman, and
that all the discordant elements in my family are brought together, and
ail animosities healed on the auspicious occasion. How stands the real
case P What is the miserable fact ?

"The first arrivals were my amiable mother-in-law, Mrs. M'Nagger,
with her obnoxious husband. For the'lady, of course, my sentiments
are simply gratitude and affection; for M'Nagger, horror and aver-
sion. He is simply and solely a bore. The next party consisted of

\S DINNER.

my brother William, with whom I have been quarrelling any time
these twenty years. We rarely meet, except on Christmas Day, and
the manner in which Mrs. William and my wife embrace and ' aear "
each other is perfectly charming. Unfortunately, I happen to know
from a mutual friend what Mrs. William remarked about my .wife's
new bonnet; and I also know my brother's opinion on the subject of
the pamphlet I published some six months ago, On our Foreign Policy in
Mesopotamia.

" A crowd of relatives followed these last arrivals, and for one
moment—for just one moment—while the hand-shaking was going on,
there was a gleam of cheerfulness ; but this, alas ! was of brief
duration, and misery shortly reigned supreme.

"All the M'Nagger family, of course, hate the Grumbler family;
and, not content with tacit hostilities, my various guests, by expressive
sniffs and shrugs, began to indicate their contempt for me and for each
other. Not only, indeed, do the families cordially detest each other, but
every individual member of those families hates every other member
with firm and determined perseverance.

" I was getting into a dreadful state of mind when dinner, to my
great relief, was announced. As in duty bound, I took down Mrs.
M'N., and left the rest to follow as best they might. My spirits were
not at all raised by hearing a slight scuffling going on behind me,
which proceeded from the eagerness of my various relatives to take
precedence of each other; and it was with great difficulty that I pre-
vented myself from bolting out at the street-door as we passed it, and
flving from the melancholy banquet which I knew awaited me.

""And a melancholy banquet it was, indeed. The conversation was
limited, and confined chiefly to the Great Eastern, the weather, and the
price of the funds. Nobody dared to introduce any debateable topic,
as that would have been at once the signal for a denial from somebody,
and general hostilities on all hands. We dined. I won't say what tor-
tures I suffered—I am naturally delicate—from having to eat the fear-
fully heavy comestibles which were presented to me, and which, it being
Christmas time, I felt bound to devour. I don't think mock-turtle soup,
boiled cod, roast beef, and plum-pudding, are quite the things for a dys-
peptic subject. I know that I felt compelled, by prescriptive custom, to
partake of them all, and I further know that Mrs. M 'N ag ger _ not only
consumed these dainties, but also several unconsidered kickshaws
besides. What the state of her health must be now, I cannot imagine.

"The penitential meal at last concluded, and Mrs. Grumbler having

Vol. 36.

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