From men to mid life crises, from Botox to Brazilians, from infertility to infidelity, every week Jacqui Leigh gives her personal take on being a fortysomething woman
10 things I hate about Christmas
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10 things I hate about Christmas.
- brandy butter
- mince pies
- Christmas pudding
- Christmas cake
- roast potatoes cooked in goose fat (cause I’m a vegetarian)
- crowded shops
- sparkly shit
- overeating
- overspending
- Christmas adverts especially that Boots one with the commando mums
- fake Christmas cheer
- office parties
That’s twelve, well spotted, give yourself a pat on the back.
Fake Christmas cheer and Christmas adverts go together, since it’s advertising that keeps telling us that perfect, glowing family togetherness is compulsory at Christmas, otherwise you have failed, zero, nil points.
Even though we know this is silly, like zombies we continue to jam the supermarket aisles, lose sleep over Christmas dinner, rack up credit card debt buying stuff that nobody wants and visit in laws through gritted teeth.
Please tell me what kind of celebration obliges us to eat something so awful that nobody is remotely tempted to eat them at any other time of year.? The only positive thing I can say about mince pies – and that goes for Christmas pudding and the rest of that evil fodder - is that you are absolutely safe the other eleven months of the year because, guess what, nobody likes them.
Sparkly shit. The shops are stuffed full of sequinned dresses designed to turn any middle aged woman into Cilla Black. What is more awful and ageing on anyone over twelve than sequins? The other day I went to a party held by an extremely nice, normally sane woman who opened the door in what appeared to be her daughter’s silver tutu. Just wait for January - the same sparkly shit you hoped would nail you that guy at the office party will be filling the sale racks, looking crappy and cheap.
So what if I sound jaded? Why is it obligatory to love Christmas? You can moan about it in a jokey way but that’s it, any more and you’re a kill joy, a misery guts, a scrooge. If anyone says bah humbug I might have to kill them.
If I am sour, it’s not on my behalf. Mo and I are such a small family unit, just me and her and my father (and my old aunty who’d much rather be at home) and I wonder what she thinks every time one of those Christmas ads with the fake families comes on TV. Does she think that’s how it’s supposed to be? At nine years of age she’s smart and worldly enough to see through the bullshit, but if I thought for just one moment that it was making her feel bad...
Her father is around but he doesn’t talk to me. His parents haven’t been in touch with her once since we split. Meanwhile my sister and her kids who really do live the Christmas dream are several thousand quid away by plane and Dan is off to Sweden with his mum.
So Christmas morning it’s just me and her and later on it will be Dad and Aunty. Not exactly a rave. But we’ll hang out, open her presents (the important bit), play on the Wii and even though it will be just us, at least we won’t have to eat Christmas pudding or play charades or drink sherry or make polite conversation.
By the way I forgot to put Secret Santas in my hate list. At some point this week I have to spend five pounds on an excruciatingly shy bloke in tech support with whom I have never even managed to make eye contact.
So that’ll be edible undies for him, right?
