Christmas

Christmas, or should that be Consumermas? As soon as everyone has returned from their summer holidays, and is counting the cost of that, and how much more their credit card bill is going to be each month, the retail bombardment of everything Christmassy starts. From about the end of September, stores start to remove the sun-tan lotions and sunglasses, and replace them with fake pop-up Christmas trees in boxes, baubles, cards and various items of festive ephemera. As the weeks progress, and the days become shorter, retailers have the perfect excuse to light up their windows with flashing, strobing, coursing rope lights, tree lights and decorations. For those lovers of all things Christmassy, it can't come soon enough, and they can't wait to show off to the world what fun, happy people they are by festooning their houses with the damned things. Apart from the cost of buying them, their electricity bill for December must be astronomical. Then of course, if they have neighbours who don't like to be outdone, they have to buy more to become top in the Christmas 'joy' stakes in their street.

People rush here and there, buying useless presents for family members and friends, only to receive equally useless presents back! I have, like so many other people, received clothes that don't fit, or that you simply wouldn't be seen dead in, along with those must-have items, like a battery-powered tie rack, or battery-powered shoe polisher, socks that light up or play a tune, or the good old standby, the car cleaning kit, perhaps wrapped in a seasonal box and including a novelty Santa sponge. But we can't be seen to be grumpy about it, especially at Christmas time, so we smile sweetly, thank them profusely, and say 'It's just what I always wanted".

If you do manage to fight your way through the crowds and buy all your presents, and write all your cards and post them to people you are only reminded of once a year, and stock up with enough food to see you through a nuclear winter, you then have the wonderful day itself to get through. If you have small children, there is about 40 minutes in the morning when they ooh and aah at their presents and that latest 'craze' toy that you've spent weeks trying to hunt down. It almost makes it all seem worthwhile. Then you realise that you forgot to buy batteries for it, or you need to fetch a spanner from the shed to undo the nut that is holding the damned thing to its packaging! That sorted, the kiddies are happy and run off to break something expensive. You can relax. Except you can't, because your partner has just informed you that although they have bought enough food to feed a school, they forgot to buy gravy powder. You then have to spend the next hour driving around a ghost town, looking at closed shutters on shops, hoping to find at least ONE Mr Patel who has decided to stay open. Well, the turkey dinner wouldn't be the same without gravy would it?

Why do we only eat turkey at Christmas? Is it because it is such a delectable, rare and delicious treat that it has to be saved for such a special occasion? No. It is bland, dry and tasteless and so has to be enlivened with - cranberry sauce? Whoever had the bright idea of spreading jam on your dinner to make it more tasty? Along with the turkey, the plate has to be piled high with Paxo stuffing, brussel sprouts, cold cabbage, over-roasted potatoes and mash, yorkshire puddings, and all quickly covered over with lashings of gravy, thanks to your foray into the wilderness. If you manage to plough through that lot, you have the traditional sweet to look forward to. Again, it is a dish reserved specially for this day, and why? Because it tastes too vile to eat on more than one day a year! Christmas pudding with rum-flavoured sauce. What a delightful plate of stodge to pile on top of your already bulging stomach. Pull the crackers, don the silly party hats, read the awful jokes e.g. 'Why did the sausage roll? Because it saw the apple turnover', play with the useless plastic toy for 5 seconds, and retire to the nearest easy chair to chat or play games, and generally socialise with distant family members.

Christmas is a time for families, so they are all rounded up from far flung outposts and penned into this one room together, when half of them have been desperately trying to avoid the other half all year! It starts with the false smiles, and the "So good to see you", and "You haven't changed a bit", followed swiftly by the theatrical kiss, and an immediate search for a space as far away from each other as possible. If drinks start flowing, tongues become loosened, and simmering guests start snipping at each other. If you manage to shepherd your festive flock through the entire day without tears before bedtime, maybe you should consider changing careers to that of a United Nations Peacekeeper.