My everyday Grinch
I am usually underwhelmed by the entire charade that is Christmas, in all it’s soul sucking, pop culture regurgitating, fatty over-indulging distraction from how crap the weather is, offensively unashamed commercial enterprising on some baby that was born that did some good stuff (that’s if you’re not Jewish & he wasn’t actually born on that day anyway but who cares because hardly any of us believe in God), OhShitI’veSuddenlyComeOverAllSpiritualBecauseLookAtAllThesePrettyLightsRoundLutonShoppingCentre.
That is, until now.
I have a new found excitement for Christmas this year. It may be partly to do with it being the first Christmas in a while that I will actually have a decent period of time off work and I am anxiously anticipating a week of being mildly intoxicated for the sake of quality family time.
Also, I have recently discovered that I really like the colour red and have re-introduced it into my day to day wardrobe choices. Coincidentally, Father Christmas also wears red (and yes, I am aware that is the world according to Coca-Cola).
I watched ‘Home Alone’ a few days ago and as much as I try to resist it makes me feel all warm inside.
More importantly, in this little home, I feel like I need to stick up for Christmas because, like I thought I was, my boyfriend is a Scrooge/Grinch, depending on your capacity for literature.
If it is even possible, I think he may be a Grinch about a lot of other things that aren’t Christmas but are Christmas-like. Basically, anything to do with dressing up silly and having fun or people singing in the streets (he hates buskers, which is stupid because some of his favourite bands were discovered performing on the side of a street. I love buskers, especially the bad ones like this guy on the underground who I think just whistles through his nose.) I think in some situations the term is party-pooper. But that always makes me think of some weird guy that goes round parties doing poos in unusual places.
Last year, he wasn’t even planning on wrapping the presents to give to his family. Where’s the magic in that? I ended up doing it for him.
So to really piss my boyfriend off, we have had a pink plastic fir tree, decorated with gold baubles, in centre stage of the flat for a week (I put it up partly due to the fact that the TV is broken and it looked good in the space where the TV used to be). I have already started planning the style in which I am going to wrap my presents (I’m going for minimalist but with a silver ribbon), and I have planned an outfit which I am going to eat Christmas dinner in (stretchy – essential for mass eating sessions, but also smart, cosy and vibrant).
Perhaps controversially, the things I like about Christmas are the least Christian things about it. And that’s what I think I used to feel guilty for. Since I don’t believe in the good book I used to think that I should dislike Christmas as not to be a hypocrite. But screw that.
I love it when I see the house of some enthusiastic rebel on a terraced street with flashing neon “ho ho ho’s” precariously assembled on the walls along with a blazing string of LEDs and inflatable snowmen. It’s even better when no one else on the street has even attempted to out do them because then you know it’s the kind of street where most residents see it as distasteful but they can’t say anything about it – because it’s Christmas and Love Thy Neighbour and all that jazz.
I just want to make clear that ‘Love Actually’ still makes me want to vomit.