Christmas comes but once a year….

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“‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In the hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.”

This little ditty from the American writer Clement C Moore may give the impression of peace and harmony in our home. Not true. Once again Christmas has arrived without my permission.

bells

I was going to be so organised this year. Start buying presents in July, get all the Swedish things going like the candles you burn every week until the BIG DAY. Order organic, hand-made advent calenders that the children will love and nurture forever, have the stocking fillers and presents beautifully wrapped and hidden by October.

None of this happened. Instead of writing at my desk I should be hiding in the downstairs loo wrapping stocking fillers. The advent calenders are the cheapest awful chocolate ones from the supermarket bought on December 1st and I still have to buy Bea’s main present.

Christmas Fairy

Christmas comes but once a year. So you’d think I would be prepared for it. Why do I never remember that time between December 10th and 25th goes at double speed.

This year for the first time we are invited to some French friends on Christmas Eve. As a Swede I am not averse to celebrating Christmas on Christmas Eve. But I have heard that in France one goes to midnight mass and then has dinner AFTERWARDS. Meanwhile Santa will have been and dropped off all the presents. So assuming we have the usual seven courses I should be home just in time to stuff the turkey and pop it in the oven for lunch.

Why Tony Blair has converted to Catholisism I can’t understand. Especially just BEFORE Christmas Eve. You’d think he’d have hung on for a few days, avoided midnight mass and got an early night.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007


3 thoughts on Christmas comes but once a year....

  • I’m really replying to the blog about your PR, but it’s old and I wanted you to see this:

    Oh, my goodness, you’re so pretty!

  • Yes, I don’t get the Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve either. Of course my sisters used to wake us all up at 2AM to open gifts. Gifts be damned, I’d rather have a good nights sleep!
    Now we don’t do gifts at all. In fact, with two large cats I don’t even put up a tree! They used to climb to the top, get stuck and scream to be let down or flatten the tree. Cleaning up broken ornaments and got very old. These days I get a wreath on the door and consider myself decorated. Christmas day I will make a standing rib roast for dinner.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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