Happy Holidays

This weekend I did something that was so humiliating, so shameful, so mortifying I can’t even bring myself to tell you about it, not even for humorous effect. Suffice it to say it was something to do with ‘the thing that I cannot tell you about’ (that’s happening tomorrow) well not yet and certainly not in a public forum and it was something to do with the last but one post.

I can tell you before you start anonymously tipping off the authorities that animals, vegetables, children and geriatrics were not involved (although I didn’t look at the packaging and the ingredients list too closely!).

My only defence is this matter is the standard one of ‘I’m innocent mlud, my wife made me do it’. And she did, honest, she made me do this thing which is shameful and humiliating and shouldn’t happen to a 50 something year old man, who has still retained his dashing good looks, wit, charm and intelligence but has, ahem, shall we say, lost a bit of definition around the central area.

It seems to me that women can do this sort of stuff and nobody ever gives it a second glance or even mentions it in polite conversation. But god forbid should a man attempt to do it, even behind the locked and barred bathroom doors, well all sorts of insinuations are made, should it become public knowledge.

(A note of clarification here – this post is nothing to do with my earlier post about losing my ‘mojo’! Get it, got it, good!)

Nevertheless it is done now and I have to live with the knowledge for the rest of my life, or at least until Alzheimer’s kicks in, which given what I did, shouldn’t be too long in coming.

Another thing what puzzles me, apart from my own behaviour, is why o why o why do parents take their kids Christmas shopping and allow them, not only to pick their Christmas presents, but allow them to carry them home as well?

I was in Town this Saturday, and yes it was hell. But it was my weekend with my 6 yr old daughter Matilda and I wanted to take her in to show her the lights and to go on the old fashioned carousel and the largest big portable big wheel in Europe (second go) and eat free cheese and cakes etc in the Christmas farmers market, and eat chestnuts that had been roasted on an open barbecue, and drink Hot Gluwine in the German market and drink Hot Chocolate with marshmallows and flakes and whipped cream, and look at the lights, and go on the other rides, and watch the street performers, and the salvation army band and all that stuff that makes Christmas shopping fun.

Except for the parents who let their children choose their presents and buy them in front of them and let them carry them. Where is their sense of Christmas? I don’t mean their religious sense, but the magical one. The one where the children start to get excited because they don’t know what they are getting, that sense of expectation, the writing of notes to Santa, the hope in their faces, the wishing, the mystery, the surprise. Where’s all that?

Is it just that these parents can’t be arsed and all they want to do is stuff their faces silly, get pissed on cheap sherry and mong out in front of the TV on Christmas Day while their kids play with something they’ve had for two weeks already and that some sort of symbolic wrapping and unwrapping may have happened in the morning but at the end of the day who gives a fuck?

I love surprises (note to Simply Clare) and hate knowing what I want for Christmas, if someone asks me I will always say just get me a surprise, it doesn’t have to be big or expensive, just perhaps something you have put a little thought into, they are always the best presents. (Although the exception to the rule was the aquarium one of the past wives bought me, I had to exchange it for a pair of Dr Marten Boots! Yes it was a surprise as I can't ever remember saying how much I would like one, which she assured me I did!)

I can still remember lying in my bed as a kid and feeling the weight of the sack or the stocking on the end of my bed and in the early morning chill of Christmas sitting there unwrapping my presents, how wonderful is that, and then later, after breakfast we would all sit down and Dad would hand out the presents, one by one, each waiting and watching the unwrapping, no mad rush, no free for all, just the family together enjoying the surprises.

And then later when I was a Dad watching the surprise and enjoyment on the faces of the kids, who didn’t know what they were getting, as they unwrapped their presents. Each and every present had been bought in secret and stashed in secret places. And then on Christmas eve we would wrap them up and of course two hours later when the kids woke up and come rushing into the bedroom all excited to wake us up, because Santa had been, watch them unwrap the presents in their stocking, having to feign surprise as each item is unwrapped to cries of joy.

And for the bigger presents like bikes, little subtefuges would be played out, like getting the children outside to look at something while the other parent wheeled the bike into the room and placed it under the tree, and the joy and the surprise when the child comes into the room is almost too much to bear (I’m filling up, just thinking about it).

So Parents, please do not take your children with you when you buy their presents, listen to them through oout the year, listen to what they say as Christmas gets closers, maybe have a chat with them about what they want Santa to bring, get them to write Santa a letter for goodness sake, then you might have a good idea about what to buy them, its about putting yourself out a little to make Christmas a great family time.

(Please note that this blog in no way supports, confirms or in any way affirms the over commercialised Christmas and in particular the over use of fairy lights, climbing Santa’s, festive Homers (duh?), flashing snowmen, (no cheap jokes here please) sparkly icicles, red nose flashing reindeer, and the million and one other tacky and cheap Christmas accoutrements people pin on their homes and themselves, I lay the blame firmly at the feet of the Americans – happy holidays Glenn and family!)