Just do you!
Christmas is fast approaching and our news feeds are getting inundated with peoples festive sceneries. Amazing Christmas trees, lights, nutcrackers, reindeers and elves galore. Magical sleigh displays, Christmas sacks that I could sleep in and matching stockings adorning gigantic fire places. We are being transported into the living rooms of the rich and famous and their incredible displays that make lapland look like my dads old shed! It all looks fantastic and I love to see how other people decorate, the colours they use, the items that appear most. As a family we are what I would call traditional. Reds, greens and gold. We have white lights on the tree and coloured lights in the playroom to try and get the boys to actually fucking play in there rather than carting all their shit into the living room! FYI it hasn’t worked!
On the flip side Christmas envy is a very real thing and it sucks cock.
Back in the 80s when I was a wee pup we had a Christmas tree a nativity scene and a few trinkets here and there. We used tinsel and no-one told us we were common. The Christmas cards that our friends and family sent us were part of the decoration. No other room apart from the living room was ever decorated. We had pillow cases instead of stockings and we had a handful of presents under the tree.
We didn’t have a dinner that took 5 hours to prepare. Its a roast dinner for fuck sake! The only difference its its a turkey with a few pigs in blankets and some cranberry sauce. Don't let the celebrity chefs fool you into thinking you have to prepare a 15 course banquet with gravy that has had to simmer for 4 hours! It's bullshit and just another ploy to extort more money from our pockets! Our dinner table centre piece were some candles and we ate from the same crockery that we did all year round. My mum may have busted out the fancy cutlery but that was about it.
I miss those simple times.
Fast forward to the age of social media and BAM we need table runners and fancy napkins shaped like erect cocks. Centre pieces that wouldn’t look out of place at Buckingham palace and a different wine to accompany each course. And that’s another thing, how much bloody food can you consume in one day? A roast dinner, pudding and a cheese board is enough for me and I’m a greedy little shit at the best of times.
Fucking hell it is exhausting just reading about it all the shit I'm meant to be doing.
I look around at my own house and my attempts at creating a Christmas haven and I feel deflated because it's not as good as I have seen on instagram. Not as many decorations. Not enough lights to help land a B747. I don't have a nutcracker in every crevice or light up stars hanging from the ceilings. There is no bauble display that looks like an allergic reaction. Then I have to have a stern word with myself and realise that my house looks awesome. My tree is beautiful because my boys helped decorate it and we had fun whilst doing it. I did have to bite my lip, stop myself from rocking in the corner and let them crack on but they never noticed me re arranging things so that was a bonus. I have decorations that we have collected over the years as a family. We use tinsel in the playroom despite the snobbery around it because I do not give a flying fuck whether The Sun newspaper thinks I'm common.
Guys this is not a dig at anyone who does these things by the way. I love all the jazz and I love seeing how people decorate for the festive season but I want to tell you that it is NOT A COMPETITION. I'm a pretty strong, resilient person and I felt meh about my effort on the decorating front. Envious of the cosy living room scenes created by fashion accounts. I am also older now and have entered that phase in my life where shits are not given as much. However there are people out there who this will effect. Who will go and spend unnecessary money on wank they don’t need. Get into debt to keep up with the insta gang.
I saw a quote that I loved the other day “we spend money we don’t have, to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like” BOOM! Nail on the head. Let’s stop trying to impress everyone. The people that matter don’t care and the people who care don’t matter - another great fucking saying and words to truly live by. We buy a few bits every year just to add to our collection and the best time to buy is after Christmas when everything is in the sale. Savvy!
I will be honest this year I did want to get involved with buying matching plates and new wine glasses and tumblers. My mum, who does not mince her words, was like why? Why go and spend that £100 on crockery you will only use for a year? I thought about it and of course she was right. I hate to admit but even at my age my mum tends to always be right! Having been on furlough for the majority of the year it was just an unnecessary spend. I will, however, be keeping an eye out to see if my chosen set goes into the sale!!
Another thing is spoiling the kids. I always promised myself that I wouldn’t spoil my boys and lo and behold I have inadvertently done it anyway! There is so much pressure when it comes to presents and wanting to give your kids everything but again it is not worth spending money you do not have however tempting. I start shopping early to spread the cost but then end up buying too much which in turn means they have come to expect it. One good thing about the era we live in is that we can often fast forward the tv so no adverts followed by the inevitable I want I want. Instead we look at the toy brochures that come through the door but luckily they are usually only a few pages. I used to love getting the Argos catalogue and circling all the things I wanted but I knew there was no way I was going to get it all. One of my fondest Christmas memories was the year I asked for a hi fi system. Christmas morning rolled around and as we came downstairs I noticed there was no large box. I was a bit gutted but I opened up my gifts and was grateful for everything I got. Then my dad asked me to go and get something from the dining room and as I did there it was shining like the North Star. A shit hot, double tape deck hi fi. I remember screaming with delight and being so happy, especially as I was not expecting it at all!!
I had a chat with the boys about the fact mummy been furloughed this year and times are tougher than previous years. I have managed to curb my spending but when did it become about the quantity of presents rather than the quality. Wanting to come downstairs to a mass of glittering gifts under the tree. Maybe they do not even notice. I have never caught them counting the presents or saying he’s got more than me. So why does it matter as long was they get a few things on their list. We have enough shite why add more? I go through the playroom all the time and give away toys and books we do not play with only to fill it with more crap. What is this obsession with quantity? I don’t have the answer but I am definitely making an effort to reign it in, for the sake of my bank balance and because I do not want spoilt cunt kids.
Right on that note I'm off to write my Christmas cards. Oh and to all you guys who send Christmas emails rather than cards, seriously?!?! Stop being tight and lazy and dust off your best fountain pen. The only thing we seem to get through the letter box is bills so let's add some festive cheer too peoples lives and send them an actual card. Oh and to all the other people who donate to charity rather than write Christmas cards, come the fuck on! You can buy plenty of cards that donate to charity. Get the Christmas tunes on, pour yourself a drink and get into the festive spirit, plus cards look beautiful around the house.