So here it is. I’m already suffering from Christmas onslaught. And it’s not even September.
Dozens of memes a week on our Facebook feeds counting down the dwindling number of weekends left until the big day, trussed-up turkeys glistening at me from posters plastered in shop windows and pubs and restaurants, online pop-ups, those bumper-sized festive editions – they’re just the same apart from a sprinkling of snowmen on the outside – tubs of Celebrations and Roses in the shops. There is no escape.
Now, believe it or not, I do love Christmas. It’s the most wonderful time of the year after all. I will be there with the best of them sat in front of It’s a Wonderful Life with a glass of mulled wine and blasting out I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day on my way to work in the run-up. Every day.
But there are several reasons why we need to put the brakes on the sleigh for at least another month or two or – now here’s an idea – until December.
- We haven’t even had Hallowe’en, or stood around a blazing bonfire oohing at fireworks exploding in the sky. The clocks haven’t even gone back yet people.
- You can have too much of a good thing – yes, even Christmas. Four months of stretched-out, diluted merriness is far less exciting than a couple of weeks of concentrated festive fun, surely?
- Shouldn’t we at least wait until it becomes universally acceptable for adults to eat chocolate at breakfast time – when we open our advent calendars – to start decking the halls with this, that or the other?
- By the time December actually rolls round, everyone is bored of the ‘heart-warming’ festive adverts designed, for some unknown reason, to make us sob into our brandy butter. A few years ago, it was the bear and the hare. Then it was penguins. Then the man on the moon (what?). And last but not least Buster the bouncy boxer dog.
- And you know the shops only put their Christmas displays up early to encourage you to spend, spend, spend – but no matter how hard you try you can’t resist that overpriced stuffed Rudolph in Asda with the dangly legs.
- Talking about Christmas also already means we’re one step closer to all that ‘new year, new me’ stuff. It never lasts. The massive bar of half-eaten Dairy Milk in my fridge is proof of that.
- Everyone forgets about the things they complained about the previous year anyway. The great aunt you forgot existed asking when you’re going to bag a boyfriend/get married/have children (or all of the above), being force fed sprouts and then made to watch the Christmas Day edition of Doctor Who or Downton Abbey in miserable silence when you’d rather be knocking back Snowballs and belting out I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day. Again.
[“Source-expressandstar”]