Róisín Ingle: The ‘post-coital embarrassment’ of waking from the Christmas fever dream

I found myself in the middle of a very involved, deeply enjoyable conversation about trifle the other day. I was interviewing food writer and critic Grace Dent, whom you might know off BBC’s Masterchef. In addition to being one of the funniest, cleverest women in Britain, Grace is a woman who really loves her food. I mean, in case you doubt her commitment, she has a wonderful podcast called Comfort Eating and an excellent autobiography called Hungry. Case firmly closed.

When we spoke as part of The Irish Times Women’s Podcast, Grace had recently purchased several Bird’s Trifle Kits. (Yes, you can still get them. I just checked and they are available in at least one well known supermarket for the bargain price of €2.50.) Talk of the trifle box kit brought us both back to childhood Christmasses past. It was a joy to listen to her explain why the kit makes the best old-school trifle and how the substitute ingredients in the box enhance rather than detract from its charm.

We were talking about grief. That's how the trifle came up. Trifle as a coping mechanism. Trifle as Valium

There is “dream topping” instead of fresh cream, for example. Strawberry jelly “crystals” instead of actual jelly. And when I reminded Grace about the little sachet of hundreds and thousands in the kit, she rightly pointed out that they weren’t even multi-coloured. That would be the trifle kit getting above its station. The sprinkles are brown, I suppose to give the effect of chocolate sprinkles. But also brown, I imagine, to add to that utilitarian feel. This, after all, is the least notiony trifle you will ever eat.

We were talking about grief. That’s how the trifle came up. Trifle as a coping mechanism. Trifle as Valium. Grace’s mother, who was also called Grace as was her mother before her, died earlier this year. Grace thinks she probably had too much rosé wine in the sun last June when she suggested that for the first Christmas without their mother, the entire family should come to her house for the day. As a result, when we spoke Grace was already experiencing that feeling many people, many women especially, feel in the run up to Christmas. “It’s that creeping feeling that you are somehow late for your life,” Grace said.

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She had ordered a new dining table and it was still in the box, waiting to be built. She wondered if she’d have enough chairs or whether somebody was going to end up sitting on a deckchair. Those who are against Christmas for feminist reasons to do with all the additional emotional labour that lands to an unfair degree on women at this time of year, have an excellent point. But there is also something mysteriously intoxicating about the adrenalin buzz of making Christmas happen.

Many of us feel like we are late for our lives right now

The slightly terrifying “late for your life” feeling Grace mentions began for many a few days ago and will last until the turkey sandwiches are being eaten late on Christmas Day when you look around to survey the sea of tat and torn wrapping paper and pieces of chocolate orange squashed into the sofa. That’s when you wake up from the Christmas fever dream and look at your pile of presents and curse the person who thought you’d be interested in a watermelon scented Yankee candle.

In that moment the Christmas spell is broken and there is what Grace calls a flat “almost post-coital embarrassment”. At this moment you wonder what it is all about. Why do you enter so enthusiastically into this near-fictional universe where you suddenly become an unrecognisable character who serves starters and aperitifs in your own home? Still, even as the spell breaks like a smashed bauble, you know you’ll do it all again next year.

Many of us feel like we are late for our lives right now. As you are reading this I expect I am somewhere scouring supermarket aisles for Branston pickle because even though nobody else who lives in my house cares about Branston pickle, it somehow feels that Christmas will not be right unless there is Branston pickle in the press.

Maybe you woke up at 4am this morning and sat bolt upright wondering how you could possibly have forgotten your teenage niece who is coming for Christmas dinner is newly vegan. All of it may well be a burden but it is also highly diverting. And we’ve never needed a diversion more.

Trifle is diverting. Trifle trivia is positively transporting. While it’s been going since 1837, Bird’s are not completely stuck in the olden days. On the packet, they have suggestions for jazzing up the kit but I imagine Grace won’t be bothered with all that. Still, if you want to “make it special” the people at Bird’s suggest using “skimmed, semi-skimmed, whole, coconut or almond milk” to make your perfect custard.

Even Bird’s have adapted to fit in with healthy eating trends but it all seems to run somewhat counter to the whole point of trifle. There are probably health and safety reasons whey they can’t say “add a load of sherry”.

It's funny, because while what has happened over the past nearly two years is no trifling matter, it was trifle that came up as I talked to Grace about grief. Unexpressed grief. Ambiguous grief. The strange grief hovering below the surface. The kind of grief that goes hand in hand with too small funerals or virtual memorials or the thought of older people still too scared to be hugged. All the grief that has not had a voice. The grief that will send Grace's siblings out to sit on her back step with a strong drink on Christmas Day remembering their mother, who sounds like a character, and the many outrageous pronouncements she made about them over the years.

"I think," Grace told me, "one way of dealing with it all is by making a really excellent trifle". And do you know something, I think Grace might be right.

roisin@irishtimes.com