268. Reasons I dislike Christmas

Sigh. Observations, not a pity-party.

1. Christmas starting early November. Christmas not just being two and a half days but two solid weeks of desperately seeking to please everyone.

2. Thinking about presents, choosing the right thing for the right person, then not bothering to buy/make  them in plenty of time. This year two friends receive something I knitted pre-pandemic! I’d forgotten all about them (the gifts, not the friends). Unfortunately, there’s one unfinished and there’s no way my brain could follow such a complex challenge right now. Other presents haven’t been delivered. I’m stuck!

3. Ordering unusual Christmas cards from Etsy and not receiving them. Then not realising Royal Mail brought forward its ‘last post’ dates. No cards anyway so…sorry folks. One rude friend here.

4. Living with someone who genuinely can’t see the point of Christmas and is able to suck the joy out of it all with one shrug.

5. Living with someone whose response to the question “What would you like for Christmas?” replies “Nothing”. There are only so many variations on the theme of Nothing one can think of and, after 52 years, I’ve run out of ideas. This year, I had a brainwave. Then, in conversation, I was told he hadn’t bought it because it was a waste of money. Ok, drop that idea. Then (and this is because he’s too lazy to have his own email account) I see that the b****r has bought it!!!! For now, he thinks it’s a delayed delivery, thank you Royal Mail strikers; in fact, it’s secreted somewhere to be wrapped on Christmas Eve. Just one problem: I’ve forgotten where I hid it (:

6. Having to buy my own Christmas presents, thrust them at my husband and say “I hope you will wrap these this year”.

7. Seriously, realising that we have no one to share Christmas with. Everyone is tied up with children and grandchildren, relatives and friends. We have no children, grandchildren, relatives within reach or friends not committed to all those things. But even if we did, Mr Killjoy would find some way out of it.

8. Christmas adverts. Do I need to say more? At a time of austerity, they still paint that picture that the Christmas table must be laden with more food than anyone can consume, that everything must be perfect, everyone be joyous. My heart goes out to all those homemakers (mostly women) who are running round in circles and expected to come up with perfection on a limited budget.

9. At heart, as someone with no religious conviction, Christmas is about children. Without children, Christmas has lacked something essential and eventually become a time to be tolerated until it’s passed.

10. A gently nagging thought - will this be my last Christmas? It casts a pall over everything, even though the thought only pops into my mind briefly and occasionally. It saddens me that D will carry mostly colourless memories of me because he will add no colour, so low as he is.

11. Being a non-drinker. Not by choice or necessity; I don’t metabolise it well. The older I get, the more I wonder if my inability to enjoy myself more is linked as much to the absence of alcohol as to my phobias.

12. I HATE Christmas food. Turkey was not available in my childhood. With luck we might have a chicken. But all it took was “Look at those dead flies” whispered in my ear by my brother and… I have never eaten Christmas pudding, Christmas cake, mince pies… that leaves sprouts, which I do like but which taste very different thanks to chemo and require apple sauce as an accompaniment! So, chez le Brun, Christmas lunch will be exactly the same as what I had today - Sunday, meatless roast. I might get a pig in a blanket if Sainsbury’s haven’t sold out.

Will I be able to come up with Reasons I Love Christmas? I’m thinking….