So despite low expectations of my self-control, my advent calendar is only half eaten and it’s 12 days to go until Christmas Eve.But that’s the only good news…

I said my jolly Christmas-embracing wouldn’t last long.

This post is dedicated to my mum’s use of the “C-word” which, as long as I can remember, has been her term for Christmas.

*Disclaimer: My mum is lovely and cheerful and buys excellent presents so hopefully she won’t stop after this post :P.

Despite the fact I may have been dancing around the kitchen to Mariah and Wham at various points this week, a red wine hangover and my unticked off Christmas list has left me feeling more Scrooge than Santa. Here’s the dark side of Christmas…

Faking it

OMG, I’ve always wanted a <insert terrible present>

Now I don’t mean to be ungrateful it’s not just the piles of unnecessary gifts (I’ll come on to that later) but the forced jollity of Christmas that gets on my nerves. I don’t think you really appreciate it when you are a child but Christmas really is quite stressful. The spending and preparing your parents probably went through every year just to keep up with the Joneses or more likely society’s expectations of Christmas.

But when you’re a grown up (ish), you realise the forced nature of sitting in a room for a day (or three if you’re unlucky and live far away) with people who you try and avoid beyond a 5 minute phone call most of the year. From the family occasion to the expected work party and all the awkwardness of seeing your bosses’ pictures of his children’s nativity play (Oh wait, we aren’t allowed to take photos of those any more right…safeguarding gone mad). Christmas is all about the fake smile and hugging your Uncle who has definitely had one too many whiskeys.

Get the blusher out now and practice your smiling, after all, it’s the most wonderful time of the year 😛

Terrible TV 

We were all really excited when we dumped Virgin Media for Sky, sorry Richard. But so many evenings we scroll through the hundreds of channels saying “There is nothing good on TV!”

Thank god for the boxset and film sections, as otherwise it’s between Kirstie’s homemade Christmas or placing your bets on who is going to die in Eastenders.

I used to love Kirstie’s little jaunts away from Location, Location, Location, even if she was always a tad patronising and her “free” vintage finds, usually involved knowing a carpenter and somehow getting him to do the labour for free (How do you manage that Kirstie and what would Phil think!) But the last episode I watched involved making wreaths which seemed to entail cutting up a few dozen books (?!) and then twirling them into elaborate roses. “Now this bit can be time consuming…” Kirstie warns as I throw the remote at the TV…

Home-made Christmas wreaths – order yours for 2018 😛

Christmas TV is dire, it’s such an accepted fact that it is almost part of the fun of the seasonal period. But rumour has it that Downton Abbey will be featuring a visit from a certain Mr. George Clooney. Now for a Clooney Christmas, I am definitely swallowing the humbugs (steady) and donning an elf hat.

Consumerism and the Mulberry advert

Has A Christmas Carol taught us nothing…Dickens would be turning in his grave as it seems we have only grown in corruption and greed since Victorian England.

The 2014 Mulberry advert perfectly demonstrates what Christmas has become.

So a Mulberry bag apparently beats Unicorn, who knew. But the star of the show is the Grandma’s smug face. I actually love this advert for all its depressing message. It started the #WinChristmas, because apparently “winning” Christmas is about spoiling your already spoilt children.

Commercialism 1 – Tiny Tim 0

Secret Santa

First of all it’s never a secret, secondly you nearly always get the housemate/work colleague you don’t know or like (not in my case this year I hastily add!).

An ex colleague of mine was pondering the propriety of giving our headteacher superman underpants. Now I’m sure he’d have taken it well but it’s always a risk. You need to gauge the sense of humour of your chosen person else it could make the rest of the year difficult.  Like Christmas work parties, there is a thin line between being a social firecracker and just getting fired.

Keep it simple and amusing. Like a funny mug or something from that stocking filler table in Urban Outfitters (although a bit of a stretch if you’ve all gone for the under a fiver category)

I’ve gone a bit cheekier this year but I feel I’m safe in assuming my housemate has good sense of humour (I’ll see if she’s still talking to me after)

Mistletoe mania

Oh being single at Christmas… The perfect time of year for inappropriate groping (thanks Father Christmas), mistletoe mistakes and dodgy decisions at New Years. The seasonal period is just another excuse for me to be even more outrageous than usual.

And yes I have that jumper in t-shirt form… I mean when else would it be socially acceptable to wear an outfit instructing people to snog you. Christmas is shameful carnage.

Being a temp has its benefits this year as I have not been involved in any Christmas parties, I also coincidentally managed to avoid my Xmas party last year (such an anti-social creature :P). I thus avoided the minefield of potential social pitfalls, like should you kiss your boss and how many canapés to take to balance out those four glasses of bubbly you’ve already downed in nervous anticipation.

I have however managed to have an encounter with someone who works where I used to and knows many of my ex colleagues. I should have followed my housemates’ rules. I think “Never get with anyone who has more than one mutual friend with you on facebook” will be my life mantra and new year’s resolution!

Family members dressed up as Father Christmas

Scrap that, any middle aged man dressed up as father Christmas…

Just so wrong.

Post-Christmas blues

Even if you enjoy the Christmas carolling and seasonal frolics, and let’s face it, it can be good fun (my humbug hat is slipping…) then you still have the Christmas comedown.

Granted you will have eaten at least double your calorie allowance for the past week, not including alcohol (ouch, don’t even try to work it out) so you need to beat those blues by joining some kind of fitness class. But don’t get too keen until January as we still have New Years to get through…

Oh the fun never stops, does it?

On the other hand… I’ve just purchased some of this for tonight, definitely a reason to be wary of Christmas…

Watch out Bristol