Christmas Club3

When my children were small we (my now ex husband, me and the three children) lived with them in an old water mill. It was three miles outside the village, nestled into a dip in the landscape so no views just the sound of the countryside. My daughter was six so that makes the boys four and three. She was a bit of an actor and was always making up shows and plays for us. He christmas production involved both her brothers - this was not a wise move as they giggled a lot and forgot their lines.
The plot was long and complicated and had the good and bad fairies - both played by the author - fighting for dominance over the elves (the boys, see I said it was not a wise thing) The performance began after we had all partaken of a pretty darned marvellous Christmas Dinner. The audience was me, my Mum and Dad, My Dad's sister Muriel, a Siamese cat called Penny who belonged to Aunty Mu and joined in with everything. The ex was "too busy" and took himself off to the kitchen where he could sup from his secret booze store (he hated that mum and dad didn't drink so didn't buy so anything he wanted to drink he had to get with his own money not theirs. Where was I? oh yes!
The audience were arranged by the director and told that they would be expected to join in. The show began and pretty soon one of the elves had been stolen from toyland by the bad fairy and the good fairy had to rescue him. The bad fairy was chasing the good fairy - this had to be seen to be believed as the director was playing both parts and at some point in the chase the Good fairy gave THE MAGIC RING to my Dad and asked him to "Keep this safe, kind man, I 'seech you"
I know, six years old and she had words like beseech in her vocabulary, spending so much time with her granny was obviously a good thing. Back to the plot.
Dad took the MAGIC RING and with sleight of hand appeared to swallow it. I did say that it was after a good lunch didn't I? and even though we never drank much my dad did like a glass of wine with his Christmas dinner. The good fairy was horrified "Oh Grandad," she wailed, "You've spoilt it now!
"Bernard!" said my Mum, "Behave yourself! " and then a little voice from the corner of the dining room (the bad fairy's domain) said
"I'll never get out of Toyland now!"
with all the sad resignation that a four year old can put into such a statement. The result was absolute hysteria. My Dad roared with laughter and if he laughed then everyone else just had to follow suit because he had an infectious laugh. My Mum hugged the good/bad fairy. the tiny elf that didn't get stolen joined in without the faintest idea what was funny (which made me laugh even more) Aunty Mu was wiping her eyes with her table napkin and the cat hid behind the door and peered, wide-eyed around the edge at all her humans who had gone mad.
We never did see the end of that play but it is one of the first things that is talked about when my children do the Do-you-remember-that-Christmas-when thing.
My youngest granddaughter will be six in February and she is just like her mother, she throws words like beseech and vulgarity into the conversation and they are always in context. We have a notebook where we write all the things she says so that we can always remember exactly what she says and one day I will put them together into an album for her.
Oh, and we never saw the MAGIC RING again!