Everyone thinks that the expression “Jolly Old Saint Nick” is totally true.
Well, it’s not. I’ve never seen a more disagreeable, unlikeable, obnoxious, insufferable and beyond the pale curmudgeon than he.
Of course, people only get to see him at photo-opportunities, so he’s all sweetness and light then. I know the real McCoy. I know he has halitosis, and stinky feet, and matted hair, and dirty fingernails. I know for a fact that he carries empty flacons and a funnel with him so he can pour in the tots people leave him, and then he imbibes them throughout the year.
But this year... it’s going to be different.
He’s been stricken with Swine Flu, and muggins here gets to stand in. They know I hate Christmas, but when I called them to tell Them so, they grinned (yes, I heard them!) and said something to the effect that it was the irony of it all that made Them do it. And anyway, I think he’s sick and tired of the whole Christmas caboodle, and so he’s shamming his illness.
Just when I’d been as good as promised the part of Hogfather in the Pantomime, too. But I’ve learned it’s better to obey Them – like that shy guy in the Stephen King story (you know, the one who saw the trainers of the ghost in the toilets) when no one else did.
As I recall, he had been asked whether he would prefer to replace a sick bass guitarist in a rock band, or the alternative.
My revenge is this Blog. What’s more, I will stuff myself silly with Bolo Rei (King Cake), and tell my cardiologist that I need to look the part. Bolo Rei, what’s that, you ask? Oh, just a little sweet nothing baked from soft white dough into which the Missus kneads all manner of stuff into it, you know, candied fruits, chocolate chips, nuts...
Oh, vey! Like a giant bagel. What do you mean, a Jewish Santa? No, it’s just that I have friends all over the world and they send us recipes and the Missus prefers cooing to watching television – nothing on but snow, you know, in these areas, and that’s something we really don’t need to watch on television – we just open the louvers and there it is.
Oh, the Bolo Rei. I was saying. There was some kind of stupid law that said it could only be eaten on December 25 and January 6 - what you call Tré Ré, because you think it’s a Maltese expression – but that would be a waste of resources. In Portugal it’s Dia dos Reis ("Day of Kings”). It’s got a texture between panettone, and qagħaq tal-ħmira.
There was a time when – just like you’re supposed to find a three-penny bit in a Christmas pudding – you could find a tiny toy inside it, too, but the Health and Safety people made sure that this little bit of innocent fun was destroyed because, they said, someone could mistake it for a nut and choke. One could choke on a nut anyway, I say.
There’s also a fava bean in the mixture, but since this is edible, the EU did not think to legislate against it. Tradition has it that whoever finds the fava bean has to pay for next year’s Bolo Rei. So if you have guests over when you serve a Bolo Rei, watch out for the one surreptitiously trying to feed something to the dog to get out of forking out the dough (sorry, bad pun!) next year.