Carol’s Column

Christmas comes but once a year – thank heavens

“I think there’s a riot,” said my husband, looking somewhat alarmed.

I didn’t have to tune in to hear the cacophony coming from the direction of the front door.

There was a heavy knocking and the door shuddered.

“There’s somebody at the door,” I whispered tentatively to my spouse, fitting a gas mask to my face and arming myself with a hockey stick.

“Do be careful, dear,” he said as he sank back into his pink, synthetic velvet-crush armchair and opened his newspaper.

I opened the door. There were eight of them, jumping, whooping and singing with much raucous enjoyment.

“Hello, Medum,” they said. “We are your happy dustbin men – we’ve come for our Klissimus boxies!”

I beamed to them: “Certainly, hold on while I find my purse,” and in a flash I’d contributed to their Christmas box – a small sack that jingled and jangled as they danced their way merrily down the drive.

“Good men, good men,” commented my husband when I told him what had caused the disturbance. “They’re the salt of the earth. They perform a sterling service to the community.”

Just then, the doorbell clanged, causing the potted aspidistra on the mock yellow-wood hall table to quiver.

There stood a stranger. A smiling stranger, but nevertheless a stranger.

“Hello, Mrs Lazar,” he grinned. “Happy Christmas to you.”

“And a Happy Christmas to you too. Er, have we met?”

“Yes, I’m your municipal drain cleaner.”

“Ah, my drain cleaner.”

“Yes, and I’ve come to wish you the compliments of the season.”

“How unexpected,” he murmured as I handed him a small donation towards his Christmas box, “but nevertheless, very welcome.”

It seemed that Saturday afternoon was Christmas Box Day. The milkman was followed by the vegetable delivery man, the newspaper delivery man. Who in turn was followed by the gardener and the chemist’s delivery man.

While incarcerated in the cloakroom, I heard the bell ring yet again.

I emerged to find my husband smiling. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ve just given the chimney sweep his Christmas box.”

“Great, that’s very generous of you,” I commented, “especially as we don’t have a chimney.”

On Monday the garage man almost dislocated his right arm polishing my car. It sparkled and glittered like a ruby.

And then, in a burst of unprecedented enthusiasm, he filled the tyres with air, checked the oil and battery, cleaned the sparks, polished the aerial and wiped the bumpers.

“Gosh, thank you,” I gushed. It was the first time my car had been cleaned this year, you understand.

“And a Happy Klissimus to you, Medum,” he smiled through my windscreen.

It would have been churlish not to reward him suitably.

On Tuesday morning, while eating breakfast, there was a shouting and screaming outside.

“Perhaps your mother’s come to call,” I said quietly to my husband.

The doorbell rang insistently. “OK, kids, don’t rush, I’ll answer.” My offspring barely paused in their chomping. I leapt to my feet to open the door.

Outside stood seven chanting and gesticulating men, waving their arms in great abandon. “Hello, Medum,” said the main spokesman, “we’re your dustbin men, we’ve come for our Klissimus boxies.”

“There’s been a mistake, our dustbin men have already been.”

“No, we haven’t been, we’re here now to wish you a Happy Klissimus.”

It seemed more prudent to give them a Christmas box than argue.

Their joy was spontaneous, they sang and danced happily down the drive.

“That was the salt of the earth,” I replied shortly to my husband’s query. “The second salts.”

It seems that in Johannesburg there are dustbin men we haven’t even heard of for on Wednesday evening, we received another visit.

In fact, we were having a small, elegant dinner party. Nobody special – just my immediate family, all 73 of them, plus the five dogs, and we didn’t hear the doorbell at first...

It was only when the aspidistra gave a cry of agony that I realised something was amiss.

My ears curled and I heard the most horrible noise coming from the front garden. I knew it couldn’t be my mother-in-law. She was inside.

My husband shuddered: “You know what it sounds like?” he nudged me.

“Some more salt of the earthers.”

Sure enough, there stood nine prancing, dancing dustbin men.

“Happy Klissimus, Happy Klissimus!” they shouted with joy in their voices and power in their lungs.

It will suffice to say that it did not concern them that we had already donated two Christmas boxes to their predecessors. So thus it was we parted with our third donation to the dustbin men’s Christmas cause.

Yesterday morning, at breakfast, I thought I’d made a mistake. Seated at the table was the most motley looking lot of ragamuffins.

“This is the Lazars?” I asked hesitantly.

Somebody answered in the affirmative. I looked closely and recognised the man of my dreams beneath the tattered doek on his head.

The four ragged urchins were also mine.

“Good heavens, is this a new look?”

“I’ve given up my job,” said my husband, complacently, I thought. “We’re going into the refuse collecting profession. It is remunerative and satisfying. I did an economic projection and realised that at this time of the year we can make a Christmas box killing.”

“But just think how you’ll smell,” I wailed.

“So what’s a little smell among friends?” he replied.

Have you ever slept in a gas mask?

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