Holiday Horror Story

The usual smells people associate with Christmas: Spiced apple, mulled wine, fresh snow on the surface of your lawn while your house is adorned with twinkling lights. What smells do I associate with the rush up to the big day? The stale sweat from excruciating crowds swarming the streets. Cheap house wine, as it splashes upon my shoes from the drunken girl stumbling out of the bar in the over packed pub full of ‘Christmas drinks’. The smell of guilt as it exudes from someone who forgot to buy a ‘Kris Kindle’ Present for their workplace colleague. Now Tom from IT won’t have any new mug to use this year? Why would you do that to him? Christmas can be an amazing time of year, but the build-up can be a hell on earth like no other. Here are my top 4.

Endless Cards

Every year without fail I will spend an evening writing extremely personal and hilarious cards to my most cherished family and friends. I will then send them at the start of December to ensure there are many weeks of display my master piece of wit and humour on the mantel place. Correction: I have sent cards once, and this year was my second. ''Why'' I hear you ask? It starts innocently enough: you gather those addresses you need to send your essential letters (if like me it's going to another country you like to keep the list small as let's face it, stamps are a bitch to get) Out of the blue someone sends you a message, Whatsapp, email, smoke signal asking for your address. Shit. You didn’t even think of them, crap now I have to add them to the list. But it's not that simple. You then have to think who around them will be offended if they don't get one. That's the first circle. As you add the new people to the list, it extends to a bigger circle again who might be rightly pissed if you don't frequent their home with a piece of paper saying ‘Happy Christmas’. What is even worse is seeing a card pop through your letter box from someone who has your address on file (I am baffled that these people exist, I have to gather these each and every time) and you being the bastard you are, didn’t even send them one. You at once rush out an purchase a card and stamp (2 if it's going to the homeland) and pop it in the first letter box you see. You then send a quick message asking if your card has arrived yet, and hope to god they don't compare there card with someone else who got your standard box of cards and there's a cheap quick one you found in a Tesco. See stressful.  It's easy to not bother. This year I did, just to essential friends and family. By family, I mean the parents and siblings otherwise the card count would be up to 500 cards,

Crowds

Crowds at work. Crowds on transport. Crowds on the streets. Crowds in the stores. Crowds in the pub. Crowds at the ATM. Where have all you feckers come from? I'm here daily, do you spent the rest of the year in a hole? If a shop is too crowded, I do a U-turn. If the pub is too crowded I avoid the bar to avoid the spill factor (drunks spilling drinks on your body). Some crowds are unavoidable. Transport. But now they have annoying bags with odd shapes that poke you in the back to disturb your reading.  It also makes it harder to navigate your avoidance of those who smell on the tube or trains.

Christmas drinks

Ok Ok. This I kinda enjoy. But the sheer amount of Christmas drinks is just not possible. As soon as November comes around, each good-bye kiss and hug is accompanied by the ‘let's do Christmas drinks’. Even a polite ‘Thanks’ ends with a ‘Let's do Christmas drinks’ shouts the bus driver who just dropped you off at your bus stop.  If I attended  all the Christmas drinks I was invited to, I would spent the entire month pissed and this is just before the big day itself.  I try to keep it to a minimum, those who closet to me and I have the best time with, Christmas drinks it is. This time of year brings my passion for mulled wine out. If I don’t turn up to your party, it's probably in direct proportion to the lack of mulled wine at your event last year and you should take it as lesson learnt and not make the same mistake again.

Kris Kindle

‘You know what will be fun?’ says Mary. ‘ if we do a Kris kindle this year’ ‘ nothing to expensive we can make a budget, let's say five to ten pounds and it has to reflect the other persons personality and it will be done at complete random so its fair. Feck this shit. First off, set the budget to a single figure not this five to ten crap, its one or the other Mary nothing in between because it only leaves room for someone to be disappointed.  Second of all, nothing worse than a theme, reflect the personality? Does this mean I can get some toilet roll for Mary, as she's full of crap? Kris kindle with almost strangers can be sometimes fun but from experience, someone always ends up with two presents and someone with non, the others all get something somewhat passive aggressive, and Mary as she is a demon went above the budget and then spoils the whole thing by saying who she got, just so she can get the glory of spending more than necessary the smug bitch. My ideal Kris kindle is: I'll get you a drink for 3.90 and you get me a drink for 3.90 we will exchange it at the bar when we go to the pub next.

All in all it's my favourite time of year. I hope you all enjoy your holidays as much as I do. Bring on another fantastic Christmas full of mulled wine and food. I'll see you all in the New Year.  Unless you're Mary, then bitch we are through.

Standard Christmas Cheer