I won't be home for Christmas. I will be spending the present-giving season in my brother Eddie's house in Winston Salem, North Carolina.
A white picket fence surrounds it; the kind of house you see in movies such as Bigand Home Alone. There are spacious gardens front and back and to the side a porch which becomes barbecue central in summer. There is also a swimming pool in the back garden. In the summer months he likes to call the place Club Ed.
Winter or summer, whenever I am staying in their house, I imagine small children on bicycles going past flinging newspapers expertly on to the lawn. I've never seen this happen mind you, but it's probably just been bad timing on my part. I will be keeping a beady eye out for the newspaper boy this year. Christmas in Winston. I can't wait.
Of course there are a couple of things I will miss. I'll miss seeing the rest of the family and all the nieces and nephews, and also a couple of festive traditions that have been established in recent years, including Christmas Eve drinks with my friends the Howard Brothers, an even funnier combo than the Marx Brothers. This always takes place in the same venue on Dame Street in Dublin, a venue we never visit at any other time of year. Even when my bag got stolen one Christmas Eve a few years ago, there was no talk of a change of venue.
So while all other pubs are packed, we have this bag-snatching haven almost to ourselves. For a few hours we drink brandy and swap presents and tell jokes. Then we go our separate ways. The brothers Howard decamp to deepest southside Dublin for more Eve of Crimbo, and my boyfriend and I commence hanging on for dear life to the coat-tails of my sister's festivities in leafy Dublin 6.
The other tradition I will miss occurs on Christmas Eve in Rachael's gaff. It's called Eating Lobster Bisque Risotto Until You Fear Your Christmas Eve Outfit May Bust At The Seams. She invented this tradition herself, and I can't recommend it highly enough. I'm talking about big lumps of lobster, the creamiest risotto and the sweetest prawns, all topped with a generous handful of the finest gruyère. You come to a point when you think you can't have any more, and then you have another spoonful and honestly if there is a heaven, its inhabitants must eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
The plan is to try to persuade both the Howard Brothers and Rachael to move their traditions forward by 24 hours, so that I can drink brandy and eat lobster bisque tonight, before I fly off to Eddie's tomorrow. I can only dream.
I am looking forward to gate-crashing Eddie's family traditions, once I have safely arrived in Winston Salem. I'm also hoping to introduce myself and them to a new one. Forty years ago a man called Fred Thrower, who worked in a TV station called WPIX, had the idea of lighting a yule log in a fireplace and filming it. Watching this film, which featured no commercial breaks, only Christmas carols playing in the background, became a holiday habit for people, especially in New York city, where actual fireplaces are known to be a bit scarce.
In 1990, The Yule Logwas cancelled by the grinches at the station for cost reasons. It remained off-air until 2001 when a combination of the post-9/11 mood and a "Bring Back The Yule Log" campaign led the station to dig out the old film, which they discovered had been misfiled for the intervening 11 years in a film can for The Honeymooners. This year is the 40th anniversary of The Yule Log, and the company has made a commemorative documentary about the history of the tradition. "A Log's Life" will be shown in homes across the US on Christmas Eve.
This year there is a rival log on another TV station. This one will air uninterrupted for 24 hours across America and feature a high-definition picture. Those who have seen it say it is "so crisp you'll be tempted to reach for a poker".
I can't wait to watch the log, and being an old-fashioned girl I'm going to stick with the original. The rival log has sparked (sorry) a heated (sorry, again) debate. "They can't hold a candle to the WPIX Yule log," one of the fans of the original log has said. "There was something special about the fireplace they used. It was just magnificent. And the fire itself - it was a roaring, happy, mesmerising fire."
So I may miss the bisque and the brandies, but on the other hand my sister-in-law Katy makes a mean bread sauce, and my American/Irish nephews Peter and Niel are great fun. Plus, it's not every day you get to sit down and watch a crackling log fire on the telly.
Merry Christmas everyone.