Christmas, It Could Happen to a Bishop
If you come from a country which celebrates Christmas over the Twelve Days, then to enjoy Christmas in the US you need to learn to enjoy the build up - for that is Christmas in America, with Christmas Day being like the whistle or horn at the end of a sporting event.
You’ll do fine if you make the most of the lights, the songs, and the parties in the build-up. Once you learn that Christmas in America is what you know as anticipation at home, you’ll a have a great time, maybe even a merry time.
But you’ll still miss the build up your own country indulges in. Parties and events to mark that Christmas-is-coming-soon-and-I-won’t-be-able-to-get-drunk-with-you-then-because-you’ll be-spending-the-best-part-of-two-weeks-getting-drunk-with-your-family-and-your-real-friends, are so often staggeringly ugly. And being a stereotype I miss that.
Once upon-an-ugly time I was at a daytime work Christmas party in a city in England. I recall lots of sprouts. And lots of wine.
The next thing I know I am standing on a platform in a train station. My face is bleeding. I have no train tickets. I have no money or wallet. And I have no idea what city I am in, except that it is not the same city I was eating Brussels sprouts in. And I have no idea how many hours or days have passed since the last sprout.
With the help of some policemen I was to find out that it was the day before Christmas Eve, and somehow I managed to continue what was an epic journey home to Dublin via Holyhead and the ferry after first visiting other English cities I had no business being in.
The English police helped me in this journey by telling me if I didn’t leave the train station they would arrest me. Aiming for sympathy, and ignoring the couple of years I now resided in England, I played the Paddy-Off-The-Boat Card telling them gently, I’m not from this country, you know
In a very knowing way both police officers nodded together and said, We know. Of course unbeknownst to me they had the advantage of being able to read what was written on my forehead some time between the sprouts and the train station, in large green letters: I’m An Irish Dick.
At the Irish Embassy in London a couple of weeks back the Bishop of Southwark had what he claims was a glass or two of wine at their Christmas function. He has no memory between leaving the party and being at home again, like me, with missing possessions and a cut head. But he knows he wasn’t drunk.
Because it would be out of character if he was. And because he defies any drunk to make the journey home to Streatham he made. A walk, two tubes, and a bus? Oh Bishop, for any seasoned or seasonal drunk, that’s a piece of cake. Christmas cake even.
It’s truly a lovely story though. A Christmas story. And I think my favourite part is when he broke into somebody’s Mercedes and threw their infant’s toys around the back of the car, before proclaiming, I’m the Bishop of Southwark, it’s what I do
Meanwhile the Bishop is having his amnesia looked into, trying to establish what might have caused it.
Update: And there’s more - Drunken Christmas Story part II
See Also:
• Travelling by Train in Ireland
• The Irish and Guilt
• Ireland & USA: Little Differences - Merry Christmas
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
I was wondering what happened to the poor old Bishop of Southwark. Is that what it was? Drink?
The poor old devil. I believe he isn’t the worst.
One admirable thing about the Brits has to be the level of derision they aim at their bishops, which paradoxically also makes them objects of affection. We Irish, on the other hand, set them up on a pedestal, while simultaneously regarding them with fear and loathing.
We’ll be all right when we get over it and can laugh at them like the Brits.
Bishop bastards!
[via Twitter]
Just read the three parts of your Christmas story. You really need an agent and a publisher.