Christmas is just round the corner

Thursday 15th November

We get 365 days notice of Christmas, but there is always a day when you wake up and realise “Oh shit, it will be Christmas soon.”  For some people this day is 24th December, but though I am often still rushing around on that day, I have never ever left it that late to buy presents.  And every year we all say to each other, “Let’s just get token presents this year, buy something nice for the kiddies, but please don’t spend much money on me.”  And every year we look at the pathetic nonsense we have bought, which may have cost 20 or 25 pounds and feel it is so inadequate that we dash out and buy something else to go with it.

And the presents are only a small part of it.  There is the buying of, the writing of and the posting of the cards.  My mother used to keep a book of cards sent and received; adding and subtracting people from her voluminous list each year depending on whether she received a card from them.  She doesn’t bother now, but still receives a mountain of cards compared to the twenty or so I get.  And what does it all mean, how many are sent out with any genuine feeling and how many because we always send these people cards.

Then there is the dragging out of the Christmas decorations which look shabbier and shabbier each year, until you do actually get around to replacing that antique artificial tree with a nice modern pre-lit monstrosity which is always smaller than you imagined when you saw it in the shop along with all the other ones.  Each year I try to surreptitiously put up a few less decorations than last year in the vain hope that one year I won’t put any up at all and no-one will notice.

Then we have the ritual of the Christmas food shopping to endure, when we know we will fill our trolley with all manner of things we would never dream of buying if it weren’t Christmas, and will struggle to eat as the New Year passes us by.  But we cannot have Christmas without Port and Stilton, or a Panetonne or a Stollen, or a Christmas Cake or Christmas Pudding or Brandy Butter, or loads of cream and chocolates galore and don’t even start on the meat.

And a tremendous amount of money will be spent, and we will regret it in January when the credit card bill comes in, but at least we will have about ten months to relax before we wake again in mid-November and realise that Christmas is coming again.