un·der·state·ment
[uhn-der-steyt-muh nt, uhn-der-steyt-]
noun
the act or an instance
of understating,
or representing in a weak or restrained way that is not borne
out by
the facts:
My boy loves Christmas. This is an understatement.
Things you should probably know about my boyfriend: he’s an
adorable brand of crazy.
Let me give you an example or two here. He loves Sherlock
Holmes. Like, loves. He’s more old
school though, where I am [for obvious reasons pertaining to the attractiveness
of RDJ] all about the Guy Ritchie films, he likes the books. And Jeremy Brett –
although he did devour Sherlock and is quite taken with the Cumberbatch.
He’s kind of a Sherlock Holmes fanboy, really.
Which brings me to the point. Have you been watching Elementary [and if not, you need to
rethink your life choices because Johnny Lee Miller is hot] – a modern day take
on Sherlock Holmes with Johnny as Sherlock and the fabulous Lucy Liu as Watson,
set in New York? It’s amazing. And Ian loves it. As in he actually made these
funny little noises in the back of his throat when we watched the first episode
and does a little sofa jig whenever we watch it and gets ridiculously excited
at all the little nods to ACD, like, that one time when Sherlock wore a t-shirt
with some kind of bee print on and he practically fell of the sofa in
excitement. He loves it. He also [I suspect and he would mostly deny] has a bit of a boy crush on Johnny
Lee Miller. In one episode Holmes was texting Watson but was trying to save
time by using acronyms. Like OMG but for every word. Ian adopted that habit for
like a week. I almost went insane. You would too if 'what would you like for tea, I'm home early so I'll cook.'
became 'WWYLFT? IHESIC.' And then another time Sherlock started doing some weird ass kind of squats. A
couple of days later Ian could barely walk, turns out he’s been doing these
squats at every available moment ‘and Jo, they actually work!’
My boyfriend is Sherlock Holmes, as portrayed by Johnny Lee
Miller. Or at least, he is in his head. And you can’t even care because he’s
just so damn adorable when he’s excited.
Which brings us to Christmas.
He loves Christmas, ‘like, more than my birthday’ and he gets all bouncy and grins this face splitting grin
that’s all teeth and wide eyes and he sings Santa
Baby really loud and drinks more Bailey’s than is perhaps good for his
health.
And insists on a real tree.
Even though we live in a terraced house and have no money.
Tueaday night we went tree shopping. I had my eye on a
reasonable sized little tree, all bright green and you know, cheap. Ian fell in love with some kind
of tree giant. The Hagrid of Christmas trees. All big and bushy and ‘Jo, look
how beautiful it is.’
‘It’s massive’ I told him, ‘it’s never going to fit in our
lounge.’
‘It will.’
‘It won’t.’
‘It will.’
‘It won’t.’
And then he did the grin, and a bit of a jump and ‘pleeeeease, I love Christmas so much
and I love this tree and I will never be happy again if we can’t have it.’
Jesus. Never happy
again, like I wanted that on my
conscience. So we bought the tree and hauled it home, with me wedged against the
window of the car and him still grinning as he patted it gently before starting
up the engine. ‘Hello Mr Christmas Tree.’
Answer me, please: how
has this become my life??
Guess what.
The tree didn’t fit. Or at least it fit, but only if we
moved all our other furniture out of the way. Ian surveyed it. I swallowed down
my ‘I told you so.’ He looked at me, said, ‘Oh fuck.’
And I couldn’t help it, ‘I TOLD YOU SO.’
And then he laughed, this deep proper belly laugh, ‘but look
how lovely it is.’
I wanted to be mad, because God, it was insane, this massive
too expensive tree that was too big for our house but he’s putting on Christmas
Crooners and thinking he’s Frank freaking Sinatra and hacking at it with the
secateurs and all I could do was roll my eyes and go and cook, telling him
crossly to think about what he’d done and looking away before he could see me
smile. Which just made him laugh more, ‘it’s such a lovely tree. Look what I’ve
done.’
So there’s half the tree in a pile by the door and the rest,
the tree that’s not been hacked away, pushed against the wall and half hanging
over the sofa and Ian singing Twelve Days
of Christmas and drinking his Bailey’s and having a minor breakdown because
he has a mild case of OCD and ‘I can’t remember where this decoration went.’
‘Doesn’t matter, put it somewhere else then.’
‘It needs to go in the right place.’
‘There is no right place; just put it where it looks nice.
It looks nice there.’
‘It doesn’t GO THERE. It has to go in the right place. I AM NOT HAVING A NICE TIME
RIGHT NOW.’
And I’m just curled up on the sofa watching him and laughing
and trying to help but not really and I had an epiphany; I thought,
this, this right here is what matters. I have been so stressed about Christmas lately and it’s
all for nothing because Tuesday night with Ian being like some kind of puppy dog
with all his excitement and the pretty decorations – and we buy something new
every year so when we trim up it kind of tells our story – and our too big tree
and my Pop-Up copy of The Night Before Christmas, that’s what it’s all about
and it just made really realise that it doesn’t even matter how hard times seem
to be, how there’s not enough time and not enough money and so much seeming to
be not-quite-right; it made me so so grateful for the memories I have and the
memories I have still to make and the people I get to share my life with, even
if one of those is a Sherlock Holmes wannabe who’s spacial awareness goes out
of the window when confronted with a pretty tree.
I really really am the
luckiest.
