AFTER THE PARTY

There is a moment at the end of a party when the music has stopped, the guests are gone, the adrenaline rush has ebbed away, and all that is left to remind you of the fun you had is your living room looking not unlike the plain of Waterloo after the battle. With you in the middle of it, feeling a bit forlorn, and if you are inclined to melancholy, indulging maybe in some reflection on the fleeting nature of human pleasures.

That is how I have always felt about the first days of January. As a child, I viewed the period around Christmas as nothing short of magical. The run up to it, with all those hours spent pouring over toys catalogues, lost in the delicious agony of choice, and scrambling to finish my letter to Santa Claus in time (the post was apparently more effective in those days, and you could send a letter to the North Pole in less than a day!). Then the wonderful ritual of the Decoration Of The Tree, which turned an ordinary, dull, green tree into a gliterring, multicolored symbol of Christmas, the beacon that was going to guide Santa to us. The extent of my assistance was limited to hanging a few sparklers at the end, and making sure I stayed well away from the most fragile accessories, but I looked at the finished article very much as the result of my decorative skills. There was the dinner on Christmas eve, the best meal of the year since you could gorge up on delicious child-friendly finger food and then just sample at will further delicacies in the adult plates, only to be carried half-asleep into your bed just before midnight. And at last came Christmas morning, the high point of the whole year, made ten times more pleasurable by the build-up of expectation. The foot of the Christmas tree was buried in piles of presents that took ages to unwrap; though they were never exactly the ones in the catalogue (Santa must have had a different version), they never disappointed.

The remainder of the holidays was pleasant enough, mostly a blur of invitations, luncheons and grown-up discussions in the background while I was playing with my new favourite toy, or engrossed in some new book. But I knew at the back of my mind that the best had already come and gone, and that we were just gently rolling out to the dreaded moment when everybody would have to go back to school or to work. That moment was heralded, on the first Sunday of the year, by another ritual: just before taking the decorations from the tree, we would light the sparklers and the candles on it (yes, live candle: how we never started the year with a real bonfire I will never know), to get a last view of all its splendours. With the last of those sparklers out, went the lights of Christmas for that year.

I may have grown up since then (not everyone would agree with this statement), but I can't help feeling a slight pang when I see the lights being taken down in the streets, and I realise that the Christmas tree will soon join the heap of its brethren on the nearby common, stripped of its baubles and waiting to be taken to the shredder. But hey, the year is brand new, there will be lots of parties, and there's always Christmas next year!