Conversations with a five-year-old about parties
"Call this a party?" my five-year-old nephew said at the pre-Christmas gathering. "Everyone's just talking!"
This, I said, is what adults mostly do at parties. What should we be doing, I asked.
"Dancing and playing games."
Which I don't disagree with. But also, talking is nice. Some of us, I tried to explain, don't see each other very often so we have to talk a lot when we do. Some of these people, I did not say, live seven hours away. Some of these people are facing the first Christmas without their husband. But his best friend and younger cousins weren't there so it was a bit top-heavy for him.
Anyway, we had some food, then we did play some party games. I don't know what he's bothered about, he had a good old chat with everyone and practiced his riddles on - to him - total strangers. He's not backwards about coming forwards.
His mum - my sister - puts so much effort into this stuff and I so appreciate it. She wants the kids to have fun memories of parties, she wants them to have lots of things happening, she wants them to be around lots of different people. So much so that she actually had two pre-Christmas parties because a bunch of people couldn't make either date. So she did both! With a broken dishwasher!
Similarly, it's for the kids that I danced the macarena on New Year's at my brother-in-law's. They've got to see adults doing these things. Adults having fun and being silly, with them.
"You're so lucky," I told the five-year-old, knowing he couldn't possibly appreciate this.
"A lot of people in this room have wrinkles," he replied.