Mrs Joe is busy doing the arrangements for Christmas day when Pip comes back from the Battery. She asks him where he was, and he answers that he was hearing the Carols. Joe is in the kitchen as well, trying to avoid Mrs Joe "cross temper"
Dickens writes with his sense of humour, describing when they have breakfast, served by Mrs Joe."So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on a forced march instead of a man and boy at home..."
Pip describes the way that Mr Joe dresses as being quite unconventional."Nothing that he wore then, fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and everything that he wore then, grazed him".
Also, he describes the way that Mrs Joe insisted on wearing him like a boy coming from the Reformatory, reaffirming his feelings that "I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality".
Joe and Pip go to the mass at the church, and there they meet Mr Wopsle, the clerck of the church, as well as Mr Hubble, the wheelwright, and Mrs Hubble. Likewise Uncle Pumblechook. All of them were invited to have dinner at Mrs Joe's house. When Joe and Pip got home, "they found the table laid, and Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked (it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and everything most splendid"
At that moment, Pip is well worried about the last night robbery, but there is no signal that anyone had discovered something about.
Mr Wopsle is the first to arrive, in sequence, came Mr and Mrs Hubble and last, Uncle Pumblechook, who Pip was not allowed to call uncle. Uncle Pumblechook is described as "a large hardbreathing middle-aged slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been all but choked". Moreover, Mrs Hubble as "a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue" and Mr Hubble as "a tough high-shouldered stooping old man, of a sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide apart".
During the dinner, Pip is bullied by all members of the table except for Joe. "I might have been an unfortunate little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these moral goads". With all "pointing their fingers" to Pip, Joe is the only one who always aided and comforted Pip. He is even called "Swine" by Mr Wopsle or "Squeaker" by Mr Pumblechook.
Mrs Joe offers brandy to Uncle Pumblechook, the same brandy that Pip had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. When drinking the brandy, Uncle Pumblechook fell something wrong and spits all the liquid on the table. Dickens again, describes the scene with good sense of humour "I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn’t know how I had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow"
When his sister goes to get the pork pie, Pip is so horrified by the situation, she will discover the robbery, that he runs always by the door " ...and ran for my life". Outside, he meets some soldiers who held out a pair of handcuffs on him.
See you on Chapter five.
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