They had never been a precisely usual family. You wouldn't think so, to look at them, were you walking down the street — they looked for all the world like something straight out of a Norman Rockwell painting. But that was just a front, you see, because if you were to go into their house you'd come out with a decidedly odd feeling.

I had that experience last year, as a matter of fact, because it was my turn of all the town to be invited for Christmas luncheon. They took pity on some poor lonely soul every year, saying that everyone needed family to spend Christmas Day with. Due to the blizzard two days before, however, I hadn't been able to get home as planned, and so it was just going to be me and my small dog eating in front of the television. But they invited me to their house — 'Oh, how jolly it will be — just like family!' — and I couldn't bear to refuse.

When I rang the doorbell and they let me through I couldn't help but notice the curtains. Anyone would be hard-pressed not to have noticed them — the vivid saffron hues and sheer voluminosity were a bit difficult to overlook.

She swept towards me then, the child in her arms. She shifted it to her left hip and proferred her right hand to me. I shook it, offering my thanks. She wore a bright sapphire, which sparkled — I noticed that there were candles in the passage. She led me through to the next room. There were more candles here, reflecting off the tinsel that was strung up in vast quantities so that the whole room sparkled. I looked round in awe. The tinsel seemed to creep everywhere, over the bookshelves, the ancient turntable, the fireplace. Over the mantle, a somewhat scaled-down print of Guernica had also been made subject to the tinsel treatment: the feelers of gold and silver marched round the frame like relentless ants on their way to an old biscuit someone dropped.

I was recalled to the picture of the family. He was holding the child now, who was babbling some nonsense about Santa Claus and waving a strangely-shaped piece of wood.

'Yes, Santa has been good this year,' the dad said, waving the bit of wood in front of the child's face.

The mother crossed down to the hearth, folding her legs under her and letting her dress spread out behind her in imitation of a medieval princess at prayer. I noticed that there was a branched candlestick on the tiles just before the fireplace; there were eight branches but only two candles, in the first two holes.

She struck a match. He moved over to join her, holding the match with her.

'Ah, the Libra and the Taurus, in harmony as always.'

I didn't bother to make the point that Libra and Taurus aren't two signs that traditionally harmonise.

'Sir, won't you join us in the blessing over the candles?'

I assented, not wishing to seem rude. They pulled me and the child into their semicircle of devotion round the candlestick. He spoke some words that sounded very strange to me.

'Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu, melekh ha'olam...'

The words wrapped round me in their sing-song fashion. She lit the first candle with her match and held it there - it too, it seemed, was held in the trace of the words.

'... Amen.'

They all echoed the final word and I hurried to follow. As they sang 'amen' together, she lit the second candle. And they all cheered.

I still don't entirely understand it, what they did to celebrate Christmas; all I know is that they were not quite ordinary. But then again, no one said that they ever were. In any case, it was a better-spent Christmas than one in front of the television.