According to Facebook, one of the
highlights of 2012 for me was changing my profile picture to one of Shakin’
Stevens. Whilst I enjoyed that immensely, I wouldn’t put it in my top 20 to be
honest. It was actually a rather lame attempt to convince everyone that I was
simply having a wonderful Christmas time when the truth is it was more Mud than
McCartney. This was the first Christmas for myself and my children in our new
house since I split from their unfathomably absent arsehole of a father and I
was determined that it was going to be festive perfection. Like most women,
the preparation for Christmas inexplicably began for me sometime around 5th
September, months before the irritating coca cola advert apparently makes it
official by thrusting the hideous phrase ‘holidays’ in our faces. In an unusual
effort to be organised, I made a list of everything I needed to do and buy so
that I would not be rushing around like the purple toast shaped Mr Men
character 5 days before Christmas with a lot still to do.
So
fast forward to 20th December and there I was, presents bought and
wrapped, cards long since written and sent, children sat happily making paper
chains and gingerbread men while the over-bearded Roy Wood serenaded us with
his ridiculous notion. Yes, there I was at my friends house, and while all of
the above were most definitely the case in her spotless abode, my Christmas was
looking very different, Nothing wrapped, no cards sent, half the presents to
buy and no time, money or motivation with which to do it. But last minute
shopping looms, although not as last minute as I was expecting. Although I am a
season ticket holder for Oxford United, I find myself with a free afternoon the
following Saturday thanks to the postponement of the mighty yellows match against
Fleetwood Town due to a sodding sodden pitch. It amazes me that despite
evolving over hundreds of thousands of years, mankind has never really got used
to rain. Mankind in Oxford is particularly struggling today, many hot and
sweaty people panic buying in the gift section of BHS. ‘Fuck it, that’ll do’
mutters the man next to me in Debenhams as he picks up an average looking dress
in probably the wrong size. There’s going to be a lucky lady on the receiving
end of that in a few days time. I love looking at all the crap that shops laughably
pass off as gifts, after all who wouldn’t want a set of three decorative,
ceramic balls of wool or a mug wearing a jumper? Whilst browsing, I spot yet
another unfunny selection of ‘Keep Calm’ merchandise. Ironically the whole
range makes me very angry, thus rendering it pointless. As I walk past Calendar
Club, I wonder where all the members of staff work from January to November.
And where do they keep all of their shelving and signage? Surely they don’t
sell enough calendars to pay for 11 months storage, staff wages and still be
left with some kind of profit? High street Goliaths are toppling all around us,
but the David that is Calendar Club soldiers on. The ill-fated HMV is next on
my list and on one hand I hope I wasn’t too rude to the handsome young shop
assistant who suggested I might be interested in treating myself to the new
Michael Buble album, but on the other hand he’s lucky I didn’t throw it at his
pretty face. On the depressing realisation that I look like a Michael Buble
fan, I go home.
That evening I begin the arduous
task of wrapping with my iPod filled with carefully selected Christmas songs
blaring out. I usually seem to put at least 20 songs on that I actually hate
but somehow feel obliged to listen to, but have decided this year that life is
too short to listen to John and Yoko and the criminally unknown Under the Tree
by the Water Babies seems like a good place to start. I doubt my technical and
playlist creating skills however, when the particularly un-festive Animal by
Def Leppard makes a welcome appearance, lifting my spirits more than any of the
yuletide offerings had managed to do. My
attention turns to the mountain of presents that Santa is taking all the credit
for and I wonder how I have made it to 34 without ever owning a sellotape
dispenser. As I start to wrap, I hear footsteps on the stairs. For the first
time in his entire life, my three year old son Finlay has decided to wake in
the night, sneak out of bed and come downstairs for a “cuddle on the sofa”. Why
he had to choose the one night when the room was filled mostly with Thomas the
Tank Engine trains and merchandise is both a mystery and a massive irritation.
Having ushered him back up and sung the theme tune to the 1970s slapstick fest,
the Goodies to him to get him back to sleep (yes, really), I can continue the
once joyful but now hideous job of wrapping the presents beautifully enough to
convince my daughter Lily that Santa’s magic elves did them. Another bunch of
bastards taking all the credit for my hard work. After 2 ½ hours or trying to
stretch wrapping paper because I had again cut it 2mm too short, I call it a
day. I log on to Facebook to be informed by many of the people that I have
hastily written and sent a card to that they will not be sending cards this
year, just donating to charity. That’s a lucky charity that will be getting the
cash equivalent of a packet of Tesco own Christmas cards and 12 first class
stamps. These are interspersed with almost identical pictures of people’s dull,
colourless Christmas trees, as if anyone other than themselves gives a shit
what it looks like. And what’s wrong with tinsel anyway? When did Christmas
suddenly become tasteful and colour co-ordinated and people become too scared
to buy interesting decorations that their kids might actually like, because it
doesn’t match the colour of their sofa? Bored by the smugness of those
declaring they have finished all their wrapping and are apparently now sitting
down to enjoy a glass of ‘el vino’, a bafflingly over used phrase by ladies
attempting to be either funny or clever and achieving neither. I decide to
follow the most popular of all festive traditions, the stuffing of ones face. It's
at this time of year I like to stock up on multi-packs of crisps and 'crackers
for cheese' as if they will never be available again, so there are plenty to get
through.
And
then a few days later, it’s gone. 3 months of over planning, over spending and
over eating are, ironically, over. Apart from the latter of course, we all have
to quickly finish off the last of the chocolate before the diet starts in the
new year, it never occurs to us that all we are doing is giving ourselves
another half a stone to lose. Saying you are ‘just using it up’ doesn’t
magically make the calories and fat content disappear. I look around at the
piles of toys and wonder which were bought in love and which were bought in
haste and I despair as I realise that I should have just wrapped up Finlay’s
willy and given to him as that seems to be all he is interested in playing
with. I sit and think of all the things I was going to do but never got round
to and how I will do it differently next year. At this point I realise that you
actually start planning for Christmas on 26th December and probably
carry on throughout the year. Hmm better start making a list.
When the kids are in bed, having passed
out in a chocolate induced coma, I open my own cocoa bean based treat and think
of all the fun I’ve missed and all the fellas that I haven’t kissed this year.
In an attempt to block out the deafening silence around me, I log on to a
popular forum that I sometimes lurk on, where a woman has come on to say that
she will be telling her young children that Santa doesn’t exist because she
does not intend to lie to them. I can’t resist this one. I get into a bit of an
argument with her after suggesting that all of us lie to our children on a
regular basis, which she disputes. She did, however, seem to leave the
conversation when I questioned whether it upset her children when she told them
that the painting they has just done of her is actually crap and looks nothing
like her or when playing peekaboo she says ‘don’t be ridiculous, of course I
can see you, you’ve only got your hands over your eyes, you are still clearly
visible.’ This makes me feel slightly better because whilst I might be feeling
miserable, I know I am not really a miserable person.
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