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'I picked up the “Lit Crib” box and just as I reached the top of the stairs, the bottom of it fell open, (the twenty year old cellotape finally disintegrating), and hundreds of cheap, glittery baubles tumbled down the stairs. We added to them every year. In a magazine I had once read that you should buy one, “special” tree decoration every year to remind you of that specific year. Who lives like that? As I saw the multicoloured crap of our Christmas past bounce down the stairs like dozens of jolly weebles I suddenly became absolutely infuriated. Here I was, again, putting up the effing decorations on my own while Madonna was flying high in her leotard, and my husband was content to sit in front of the television for the rest of his life, and my lazy children would be squeezing out any last bit of energy the menopause had left me with.'

Mammy loses her crap over Christmas.

You're welcome!

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Christmas can be hard - not least because it is all about those we love - and those we - er - don't......

'The truth is all the decorating, and cooking and shopping and glittery table dressing is so often used as a distraction for the main business of being with our family. Not the favourite sister, or the adored children – but the extended family. The mother-in-law who makes better gravy than you, the verbally incontinent uncle, the vegan cousin who has to be especially catered for, the sibling you haven’t seen since last Christmas when he got into a drunken fight with your husband after an argument playing Family Fortunes.....'

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En-suite cabins - stroganoff - Swedish meattballs and soft furnishings - what's going ON lads? Travelling on the boat to English is a far cry from the vomit-comet cattle wagons of my youth. As we journey across on the Stena to Liverpool - English producer Dea and I squabble over the art of Irish passive-aggressive persuasion plus My Father's Wake author, Kevin Toolis, recalls the long childhood van journeys from Edinburgh to Achill.

Learn more about my amazing guests! - Circus250 ring mistress Dr. Dea Birkett https://circus250.com/our-circus250-team

BAFTA award winning writer/director Kevin Toolis https://www.facebook.com/share/1Wh4ouaPe7/

If you would like to support this podcast - head over to my Patreon page 🙏https://www.patreon.com/katekerriganauthor?utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator

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