'Tis the 13th day of Christmas, when children go back to school and traditionally there's a good chance of a bargain at a matinée of A Christmas Carol. And so I found myself at the Old Vic this afternoon, gleefully - seat knocked down to £10 from £65 - in an audience that might have arrived on a Saga coach trip. Free mince pies and oranges, Christmas carols and bells - and the feeling that Mr Dickens would have been in his element.
I didn't warm to the BBC version at Christmas - still haven't seen episode 3 but it was all too gloomy and modern for me and though I daresay Mrs Cratchit might have been forced on the game in real life, I prefer to think of her cooking a goose the size of a sparrow.
But the Old Vic production is Dickens just as I like it, pleasingly ghostly with a snowstorm or two (huge foamy flakes smelling of Persil) that must have frizzed several shampoo-and-sets. But the best bit is when the whole audience joins in to deliver Christmas dinner to the Cratchits ... passing down jellies and platters of oysters and dishes of cake and baskets of bread rolls and strings of sausages that would have stretched to Waterloo station ... not to mention the arrival of a XXXL flying goose.
It was a happy ending to the Christmas season, now all that is left in the cupboard is one mince pie and  a chocolate reindeer. (It runs for another week or so; the ticket sale that I found has expired but it's always worth keeping an eye out for these last-minute offers.)
Happy New Year, everyone.