tight

If I don’t get up right now to mix some flour with some sugar and fruit and butter and cherries and spices and nuts and wet stuff and then line a tin and heat an oven and add one to another and pop in the third, if I don’t get up to do that then Christmas won’t come and I won’t have to admit how little of the stuff to be done this year I have done or have started to do.

Perhaps I could do all of that and still be a Christmas denier. So long as I don’t turn the thing over, peel away the greaseproof paper, prick it all over and pour over the Marsala. So long as I don’t do that last bit and repeat it over and again, I — and the year — might be saved.

But where’s the fun in that.

draw

Okay Baubles, are you all listening? Right. I am thinking of a shape with four corners and four sides. All of its sides are the same length. What shape am I thinking of? Brilliant! Well done! So Baubles, you now have nine points, Christmas Trees, it’s your turn. I have ten pence in my pocket. I buy a cake for three pence. How much money do I have left over? Oo, nearly right, would another Christmas Tree like to use your team’s other go? Yes! Well done! Right, it’s neck and neck. Baubles, this is your last question. Are you ready? What is our largest value coin, the coin that is worth the most money? No, not a pound, but good try, which Bauble would like to take the last go at your last question? Yes! Well done! This is so close, everyone. Christmas Trees, this is your last go. Think really carefully before you put your hands up. I buy some sweets for eight pence and some toothpaste for thirteen pence — cos I’ll be needing it after all those sweets. How much money do I need all together? Think carefully. If you want to, put the biggest number in your head and use your fingers to count on. Yes? Fantastic! Well done!

Baubles and Christmas Trees, you’ve both got ten points. Ten points each. That means we’ll have to have a tiebreak question. This one isn’t a Numeracy question because all the best quizzes have General Knowledge tiebreak questions. That means it could be about anything. Anything at all.

Are you ready? This time — just this time — you don’t have to put your hand up. If you know the answer you can shout it out. Are you listening really carefully? Right, here we go.

Who ...


... lives in a pineapple under the sea?

Rehearsal

Cumulatively it’s twelve partridges, twelve pear trees, twelve drummers, at least twelve drums, twenty-two turtle doves, thirty French hens, thirty lords, thirty-six calling birds, thirty-six ladies, forty gold rings, forty maids, forty cows, forty buckets, forty-two straining geese, at least forty-two goose eggs, forty-two swans, and an unspecified amount of unspecified liquid deep enough for swan legs.

With actions, it all adds up.