Committing the most heinous of crimes: Five things i don't like about Christmas.

I’ve not even written a sentence and I can already see you imagining my face on that voluptuous green body, donned by the one and only Grinch.  However before you go throwing your toys out of the pram, give me a second to lay down my argument. Christmas to me sucks. I’ve never really seen the point of it and the whole experience just appears anti-climatic.  Every Boxing Day I’m left feeling bored, miserable, skint and two stone heavier.  Don’t get me wrong, I love spending time with my family on Christmas day and passively watching the showdown between my grandparents as to whether we are going to watch it’s a Wonderful Life or the Downtown Abbey Christmas Special. However, Christmas today seems to have been turned into a bit of a spectacle loosing its original sentiment and in its place creating spoilt children, debt and ridiculous jumpers.  However, don’t worry I’m not going to go all heavy on you and probably isolate half of the population. Here are five reasons I’m sure you can relate to, too.

    The Christmas Card

The Christmas card can be considered to be one of the central pillars of your early life.  You remember the days of apprehensively waiting at your primary school desk. How many Christmas cards will I get? Will the popular girl send me one? You know who I mean; the one who is cool enough to hang around with the year six’s and married the hunkiest boy in school with a sacrilegious Haribo ring.  Then there is the dilemma of sending them. You’ve got approximately 40 pointless little cards in your pound land saver pack and you need to send out all 40 or you are basically admitting to yourself that you are a loner and subsequently committing social suicide. Do you send your crush your favourite card with the cute dogs or is that too forward? Maybe you should play hard to get and send him the kittens in Christmas hats? How many kisses constitutes sweet before it gets slutty?

This was the origin of the Christmas card for me. It was a point of social tension.  Taking it into the post-pubescent era, I have to ask why do we continue to send these pointless pieces of card? I understand if it’s off your great auntie’s cousin’s girlfriend , who you have not seen in years and needs to give you a run down on all the family's shenanigans. But I do not need a card from my next door neighbor or best friend saying ‘To Rea. Happy Christmas. From Bob’ (for the record I have no friends or, from what I’m aware, neighbors called Bob).  Why don’t you just wish me a happy Christmas in person?  Dwelling on that point, what does a happy Christmas actually mean? It’s just empty words with no sentiment. Some people have told me that they like Christmas cards because they like the words. But their not my words, they’re the words of some bored graduate working at Clintons. He’s probably not had his lunch in a few hours and knows if he throws in the phrase, ‘May your Christmas sparkle with moments of love, laughter and goodwill’, he’ll have hit the nail on the head and can enjoy his tuna sandwich smugly.

Then there is the issue of what you do with the Christmas card and when it is acceptable to resign it to its predetermined fate, the bin. You don’t want to be rude by throwing it away, but it’s January and you really need the bugger out of your life.

  Christmas related stuff

Why is it that as soon as it turns mid-August my vision appears to become limited to a sea of green and red?  And the sparkles, oh the bloody sparkles.  Last week I went out on my weekly haunt to buy a new outfit and it appears that all the high street appears to stock is outcasts from Dolly Parton’s wardrobe.  I don’t want to wear sparkles, sequins or any of that crap. Just because its Christmas doesn’t mean I want to look like the tree. Then there are the songs. Some of them are quite catchy, I mean who doesn’t enjoy Fairy Tale of New York and All I Want for Christmas. However, it’s not all I want to hear on repeat two months before the big day.  There are some people who want/need to dance somewhat inappropriately on a night out and I do not want to see them destroying my favourite Christmas songs by their ‘sexy’ dancing.  Let’s make sure we can cater for all creeds during the Christmas period, shall we? To avoid treasured childhood memories being ruined by Miley Cyrus and her godforsaken twerk.

    Gifts

The stress of buying gifts is always something which makes me dread Christmas. One, I’m usually skint and two, I am so terrible at it. I think one year, in a technological savvy age, I actually bought someone a phone book! Men are even harder to buy for. With women at least you can fog them off with a nice piece of jewellery, perfume, clothes, anything really. Men, why is it so bloody difficult? My mums not much help, ‘what should I get granddad and dad’, the response ‘socks’. How many pairs of socks do you really need? Do you actually like socks? I know that if I unwrapped a beautifully wrapped gift, to find socks I wouldn’t be exactly over the moon. Inevitably we end up buying people gifts they don’t really need and the only person who ends up pleased in the whole process is the CEO of Primark.

    Getting Fat

As Tom Daley cruelly reminded me on Twitter a few days ago, in a cliché post, ‘summer bodies are built in winter’. Thanks for that one Tom.  And how can anyone possibly follow that mantra with the amount of food that appears to suddenly become extremely accessible and integral that you eat in large quantities. Cake, sweets, mince pies, alcohol, roast potatoes, more alcohol and cheap disgusting chocolate coins that you just can’t help sneaking off the Christmas tree. I try to restrain myself, but theirs always my nana reminding me that, ‘it’s Christmas, it’s a treat’ and ‘give over, there’s nothing of you eat more’. If persistent she will then whip out the big guns and say that’s she ‘worried about my eating patterns’, (this all comes from the woman who has a spoonful of mash potato and is full). It’s a difficult situation to navigate and the answer is usually to just consume as much as humanely possible. However after this eating jamboree, you then immediately feel guilty. Eventually you come to the realisation that the sparkly Dolly Parton dress, you were forced to buy as an exacerbated consumer, will have to be returned back to the store. More than likely, it will probably return to haunt you in your local Oxfam a few months later.

  The After match

So the build up to Christmas cannot be described as anything other than pure excitement. People are always smiling and it gives your days at work meaning as the countdown to the forsaken holiday begins.  Bright jumpers come out and there is the inappropriate scene at the staff Christmas party, you spend weeks trying to forget about. Secret Santa begins and your electricity bill rockets sky high from the amount of LED lights flashing in every room of the house. However, when the day comes you can’t help but sense a dark cloud foreboding in the near distance, often literally and not just figuratively. Everyone knows winter is a killer; the sun sets before kids get home, its freezing and if you are a student you spend 90 per cent of your time revising in several duvets.  So, when the day of reckoning arrives you can’t help but feel kinda sad that your chocolate calendar abandons you here. Another two months of the black abyss alone, until spring arrives.

Sorry to piss on everyone’s bonfire. I am not completely miserable there are some joys to come out of Christmas, which is namely the 2015 One Direction Calendar.  

Only five more days till December and when everyone subsequently loses their marbles.  Merry Christmas!