Tree Up, Wallet Out

‘It’s The Most Wonderful Ti…….ermmm no……Expensive time of the year’ …again, or as some people like to call it, ‘Christmas’

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the festive season as much as the next average Joe, but yesterday the wife was harping on at me to get the tree and all the decorations out. It went on all afternoon until I eventually buckled and went into my dumping ground of a loft and retrieved the 6ft 6inch plastic Canadian Pine monster she made me fork out £100 quid for a few years ago. Man I hate that ruddy thing. I mean for goodness sake it’s 1st December!

So instead of chilling out watching a film, or popping out down the boozer to watch the football, I ended up caked in dust, fiddling with the awkward building of the tree, carefully ‘helping’ her (being instructed) decorate the thing with her colour coded madness of baubles and beads, not what I pictured my night to look like.

For me it’s just too damn early to have the tree up, I can’t be alone in that surely?

In previous years the thing that has annoyed me the most about the month of Christmas…..I mean December, is the constant pressure to spend your hard earned dinero on boxes of tat that nobody wants. The country again completely missing the point of Christmas, which of course as we all know, is spending too much time with family you dislike and then spending Boxing Day moaning about how awful they are, and how dire their cooking was, and how next year you are ‘going to do something different’….yeah right.

The relentless consumerism behind it also sickens me. But that is because I am quite frankly, tighter than a gooses backside, so naturally I hate getting my wallet out.

The thing that annoys me most now however about Christmas, is of course, social media…

How everyone you know is continually showing off how many hundreds of gifts they bought their kids, or how they are in Lapland with some unhappy reindeer in captivity. Or my now all-time least favourite past time, the ‘Elf on a Shelf’ craze that sees attention hungry adults putting an elf doll in various ‘cheeky’ positions, likely much to the despair of the majority of their ‘friends’ who see it. Again I’m certain I’m not the only one who sees this activity as utterly pathetic?

Some folks might refer to me as something of a ‘scrooge’ when it comes to Christmas, but they would be wrong. I simply have different ideas on what Christmas is about, and to re-affirm that I am not some grumpy old goat, I am cooking for around 11 of my family this year, so if that’s not getting into the spirit I don’t know what is!

For me Christmas is about relaxing, taking a bit of time off work at the end of another year.

It’s about eating and drinking all the stuff you can really only enjoy at Christmas. I mean, who buys a full turkey at any other time of year? Cranberry sauce in July? Wizard on the stereo because you ‘like their music’…..I mean come on, there are things that you just have to embrace at this time of year.

Most of all, and more so this year than before, Christmas is about children.

As most of my readers and customers know, I was lucky enough to become a father in August 2017 to our little boy, Michael, who, last year was still in what I like to call the ‘lump stage’ at Christmas, whereby they just don’t really do anything other than make noises, fill nappies and make you smile.

This year however he’s now walking, talking, albeit baby language, and has a much fuller understanding of toys, making decisions, foods, likes and dislikes etc etc, in short, he’s not a baby anymore!

He still isn’t really going to get the idea of Christmas but I’m sure he’ll enjoy the wrapping paper, sweet food, and playing time with the other kids in the family.

Plus all of the new toys which he is bound to receive, most likely duplicates of what he already has! But hey two is better than one right?

That’s what I’m looking forward to most this year, apart from a bit of downtime from work of course, is seeing his little face all excited and overwhelmed.

See I’m not that much of a grump!

Cooking for that amount will also be fun, but I will be exploring that in my next blog, maybe you can even give me some inspiration!

Thanks for reading and as always, until next time….