I'm not quite ready for Christmas yet. I should be. Earlier this week, rather smugly, I thought I had all my presents when I got my last delivery this week. I didn't even open the package til the afternoon, because I knew what it was. Ha! What a fool I was! In short, the bozos messed up my order, sent me the wrong thing and now I'm a present down because of the hoops I have to jump through in order to return it and get the right thing back. Bozos.
Other things I have to do include, but are not limited to:
-Tidying my room (I think it's always nice to have a tidy room and clean bed clothes on Christmas Eve.)
-Making rocky road traybakes (Just call me Nigella.)
-Ironing (All my ironing is in the utility room, sorry, I mean dining room. That'll never do.)
-Wrap presents (Although I traditionally don't do this until Christmas Eve. See below.)
Things I've done to get ready for Christmas include, but are not limited to:
-Decorate the tree (With Christmas Day being on a Sunday ours is up for the maximum time. Eh...see below again)
-Shopping (annual shopping trip to Belfast with Father and ordering some stuff online? Done.)
-The Christmas food big shop and annual trip to M&S (it's the only time we get food from M&S, best summed up in these four words 'Wensleydale and blueberry cheese'.)
I don't know about you, but what makes it Christmas to me is a hundred million tiny things, mostly based around our own family's Christmas traditions. Everyone has these. Dave Gorman on his radio show this week got people to tweet the things listeners' families did that no one else does. They included the men of the family all sitting down to watch a spaghetti western on Christmas Eve, someone's parents putting wrapping paper across their bedroom door frame so they have to burst out on Christmas morning (genius idea!) and someone having to tidy up all the discarded wrapping paper and when they go out to the kitchen to throw it out their final big present is out there. Ah family Christmas traditions!
My family's aren't that spectacular. Like most families we get special-don't-buy-them-any-other-time-of-year foods, like the aforementioned Wensleydale and blueberry cheese, but also Primula cheese (you may know it by it's more common name of 'toothpaste cheese') and duck spring rolls (and other party food) from M&S. You might be more extravagant than ours and get those foods during the year. Like Cheryl was at CHW when she brought Wensleydale and blueberry cheese camping! I've never been more shocked. Not us though.
We don't put our tree up until two Sundays before Christmas. Mostly because we get a real tree, but also because decorating the tree has always been a Sunday afternoon activity. We could never put our tree up on any other day. Another one is that I always go Christmas shopping with my dad. This originates from when David and I were small and dad would take us shopping, in turn, to buy each other's present. Equally, I don't wrap my presents until Christmas Eve, because my dad would take us in turn to wrap them on Christmas Eve while Mum was busy cooking stuff. It genuinely doesn't feel right to me to wrap Christmas presents before Christmas Eve, you know if there's someone you need to give their present to earlier than Christmas Day.
I think for these reasons my Christmas switch take a few weeks to come on. It's more your dimmer switch. It's not just seeing the Coca-Cola holidays a-coming advert or having Elf on TV. My Christmas switch does not get flicked on on 1st December or by me playing a Christmas song on my iPod. I can't make myself feel Christmassy in November. I'm immune to Christmas adverts before December; you're wasting your money on me advertisers. Same with Christmas music. To me, it's just wrong in November (and October - Scott Mills I'm looking at you). To me, it's a feeling that builds over a couple of weeks in December. I can't help it, it's just how I was raised.
That said, I'm there now. I unleashed my Christmas jumper this week. Oh yes.
No comments:
Post a Comment