It’s coming to that time of year again. Festive tunes are blaring out of every Ipod, the advent calendars are being placed upon walls and the decorations are being dusted off. It’s time for Christmas; a time of joy, of happiness and of giving.
But also a time of stress, fighting and spending the entire day with your family- which, almost never ends well.
It is one of the days of the year we’ll all count down to but let’s be honest we tend to gloss over the bad stuff about Christmas Day.
Some of you jolly little carollers may be gasping at my negative Christmas attitude… but just let me explain.
You start off getting up at some ridiculous hour in the morning. Christmas is supposed to be a holiday so why do we still have to get up at 7am. Santa isn’t going to take the presents back- he’s not real! And if you do make the decision to have a sensible lie in and make everyone wait for you to open presents you inevitably wake up to a younger sibling pouring freezing cold water over your face: ‘Woops sorry didn’t mean that. But seeing as you’re up…’
And then there’s the opening of presents and pretending like you needed five pair of reindeer socks- ‘Aww yeah Mum that’s exactly what I wanted.’ All the while what you really want is to go back to bed. And then you have to wear every single item of clothing you have been bought so as not to offend anyone, even if it’s ugly or impractical. If you got bought five jumpers, a hat and a scarf, you’re going to have a toasty day.
Then we get to the centrepiece- Christmas dinner. What’s wrong with the Christmas dinner, you may ask? Well aside from the stress of making it- someone always breaks down over the not-quite-right gravy and someone else gets mad that the parsnips are burnt- there is also the awkward moment when there is only one roast potato left:
‘Can I have the last roast potato?’
‘You had it last year!’
‘No she had it last year!’
‘No…!’
But the dinner is generally good; everyone gets drunk and seems happy. Everyone settles down to watch television…
That’s the calm before the storm.
The time in between television and bed is taken up by one thing and one thing only:
Board games.
Different families will opt for different games. Some will go for the classics: Monopoly, Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit. Some will opt for the more modern and alternative: Cranium, Mousetrap or Articulate. Regardless of the one you choose, chaos will ensue. Someone will get punched square in the face; someone else will burst into tears and someone will storm out half way through. Oh and everyone will accuse the winner of cheating.
And then Christmas day comes to a close with everyone slinking off to bed in a huff.
But don’t call me Scrooge. I’ll be counting the days until Christmas with the rest of you. I can’t wait to open my presents and stuff my face with food. I just know that when midnight of that fateful day comes I’ll be thanking the universe that I have to wait another year for it to come around again.
claireflynn317 