Get the christmas presents yourself.

I never really understood how much I loathe christmas shopping.   

Until I met the hot geek (J).

He drives me fucking insane.  Seriously he makes me crazy.

And not the good kind of crazy, I’m talking about the eye twitching, lip curling kind of crazy where it wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable to put my hands around his throat and throttle him.

I have quite a large family.  I have 4 brothers, 8 nieces and nephews and more cousins than I care to try and count.  Our family has a kind of unspoken understanding that we don’t do big Christmases.  Not because we’re tight with money, but because there are just so many of us.

Christmas wasn’t really a big deal when we were little.  We didn’t have tons of spare cash and Mum and Dad were always really good at just getting us one or two things, but the kind of things that we really wanted.  In my case it was my pink and purple bike.  My younger brother Daniel wanted some huge crayola pen set because he was the gay creative one.  Michael, the youngest, wanted a pellet gun.  He got a spud gun.

Really – what self respecting parent is going to give their 7 year old a pellet gun????

He was more than a little miffed until he realised that firing a piece of potato at my thigh had the same effect as a pellet.  Fuck, those little bits of potato hurt.

But I digress.

J’s family on the other hand live for christmas and buying presents.  They love to see peoples expression when they open their gift. 

Christmas for them is huge.  His mum normally hosts Christmas at her house and has everyone over.  There’s the Hot Geek, Keira and I, his brother and sister, his aunt, his cousin and a couple of uncles.  The house isn’t huge so it always feel packed.

Keira is the only ‘small person’ in the family and the expression ‘Christmas is for kids’ couldn’t be truer where the J is concerned.

He loves christmas, loves christmas shopping and could literally spend hours just wandering around the shops, looking at stuff and thinking about who it would better suit and pondering whether he should buy it.

He’s like the chalk to my cheese.

We have a really large town centre jam packed with shops and two really big shopping malls. One of them hosts 2 large department stores each spread over 3 floors.  For me, the thought of aimlessly walking around either of them and occasionally stopping to look at something fills me with dread.

Everywhere is busy with people walking really slowly with no real clue of what they want.  The town is full of children crying because they’re bored or tired or screaming because they’ve seen yet another Ben 10 action figure that they absolutely must have. 

Going shopping normally means taking Keira who flat out refuses to get into her buggy and be pushed because ‘she’s a big girl and doesn’t need a buggy anymore’.  The flip side to that evil coin is that having her walk around means that I’m constantly having to stop to wait for her to either catch me up or to drag away from a shop window kicking and screaming.  Why do I have to justify to a screaming, tantrum throwing 3 year old that she does not need a giant 70′s inspired space hopper?   

 I can not bear it.

 I like lists.  Call me an anal control freak all you like, but I like lists.  I like to know what people want in advance so I can go and buy it.  So I don’t have to stand behind the woman with 2 trolley loads of gifts who is still contemplating whether she’s bought the right thing whilst the less-than-bothered check out girl is ringing them through the till.

I like lists because I know that I didn’t buy something for the sake of buying it and that I’m not likely to receive said gift back in about 4 months time for my birthday. 

Is that so wrong?  Am I really weird?

Perhaps I’ll just do all my shopping online.

Just call me The Grinch.

Hair… update!

I’m going to pay the hairdresser to do my hair for Friday.

With the best will in the world, I’m not going to be able to get it looking like how I want it and that will turn me into a mega bitch.  Which isn’t fun. 

I’ll pay the £25.

Will I embarrass myself?

Probably.

Well, it’s more likely to be a yes.

Friday sees the long-awaited arrival of the works christmas party and I can’t wait.

I compiled a list yesterday of all the items I need to make sure I bring with me to work so I can make an attempt at looking über fabulous:

(The main event) The Black Dress – check

Semi high, slinky, back sandals -  check

Pull-me-in-push-me-up underwear – check

Make -up (everything I own, just in case) – check

Any and all hair paraphernalia – check

Wine – check

Now, I have two options where my hair is concerned: I can either attempt to do it myself or I can keep my hairdressers appointment and have them do it for a no doubt sizeable fee.

Now, I already know that if I do my hair myself, I will royally screw it up because it wont look anything like the Oscar winning ‘do’ that I’ve conjured up in my head.  In fact, it’ll go flat, lose the style and it’ll be all I look at in every photo that gets taken.  I’ll wish I wore a hat.  Or wish I wasn’t so bloody tight and just paid to get it done properly.  Vain?  Perhaps.  OCD?  Definitely.

Decisions, decisions.

But I have bigger things to concern myself with.  Mostly where the dress is concerned. 

Why?

Because it’s floor length.  And I WILL trip over the hem of it at some point.  That is as inevitable as death and taxes. 

Fuck.

I’m fairly certain that this is how the evening will go where the dress is concerned and this is why I have no doubt that I’ll embarrass myself in front of my entire company:

5:30pm – Arrive at hotel with Kat and start getting ready for christmas party.

5:35pm – Open first bottle of wine to drink whilst getting ready

6:35pm – Open second bottle of wine

7:00pm – Make my way to the Grand Hall in the hotel for said Black Tie Christmas Party wearing uber fabulous dress and feeling equally funky with myself (and maybe a little tipsy)

7:15pm – Buy large glass of rosé to smother the nerves of wearing a glam dress in public and in an attempt to not care if I’m being judged on said dress – which, for the record, shows off my boobs.

7:30pm – Sit down for 3 course dinner.  Am on a table with people I like so the necessity for polite chit-chat isn’t so great.  (Thank God because I babble when I’m nervous or lost for actual meaningful conversation and have this awful knack of offending people who don’t get my sense of humour!! Yeah, like that could ever actually happen – everyone ‘gets’ my sense of humour… Or not)

9:30pm – Finish meal (along with the wine on the table). 

9:30pm – 10:30pm – Mingle and make polite chit chat.  Note to self: Do not attempt your humour with the Directors.  Some of them aren’t real people.  You can’t talk to them.

10:30pm – Grab Kat, make way to dancefloor and throw a few shapes around

I wont feel at all complete until the DJ plays Livin’ On A Prayer and I get to do my air guitar routine – which for the record is legendary around these parts….

It’s about now that I realise my feet hurt because not only have I (freely) opted to wear silly shoes all evening but I’ve been throwing myself around the dance floor so, against my better judgement, I’ll take the shoes off.

Pop Quiz: What did I say earlier about the dress? 

No scrolling back up to re-read the post……

That’s right – it’s floor length! 

(If you remembered that without having to read it back, go ahead and give yourself a gold star)

In my rosé induced haze I WILL forget that the dress is floor length.  I WILL forget to lift the dress ever so slightly so as not to walk into the hem of it and I probably WILL fall completely flat on my face. 

In front of my work colleagues. 

….. and the other 250 guests from other companies who’ll be at the same venue.

The non-conformist in me tells me that I should change some bits around so it doesn’t happen.  But like what?  I’ll NEVER find another dress that a) fits me and b) looks good between now and Thursday evening.  I can’t change the shoes because anything higher will make the dress look too short and anything flatter will have the same effect as no shoes.

Fuck it.

Maybe I’ll just accept my fate now and pre-warn everyone.

By the way: I fully accept that this post makes me sound like an alcoholic.  I’m not.  I just like wine.  And it’s christmas for christ sakes so anyone who doesn’t like it can shove it up their ass.

Except you.  Not you.  I like you. 

I’m cancelling christmas

I. Hate. Christmas.

There I said it.

Shove me an award for being a miserable parent if you want, I don’t give a toss.  I do not love the festive period.

I don’t mind the actual day – the jubilation in Keira’s face when she opens her presents is always wonderful but what I do not love is the run up to it.

Every sodding TV channel is drowning in adverts aimed at kids and they all seem to play on an endless loop showing news dolls, bears, electric toys and whatever else small people like.  I swear if I have to hear ‘I want one of those’ once more, I’m taking the TV down.

It’s driving me bloody insane.

The shopping centres are no better either.  People dressed as Disney characters doing everything in their power to entice my daughter into the shop so she can no doubt demand one of everything.

They receive a glare as cold as the weather daring them to carry on.  I think I must just radiate the term FUCK OFF!

Keira went through a catalogue and insisted Santa bring her one of almost everything.

I tried to explain that ‘Santa’ might run out of money buying everything she wanted and that perhaps she should just think of one or two things to ask him for.

I may as well have gone out and reasoned with the lamp-post.

I’m convinced that marketing and advertising geeks don’t have kids otherwise we wouldn’t be inflicted with such hell.

Tossers.