I usually hate Christmas. Or rather I hate having to do anything at Christmas.
I can't be bothered to shop, or to put the tree up, I rarely send Christmas cards and I resent spending money. All in all, this doesn't make me Mr Festive Cheer 2011 or whichever year I'm moaning about.
I moan endlessly about the commercialisation of Christmas, and about greed and wanting stuff and all that. Blah blah blah I go on.
Well, this year I'm almost enjoying it. And as crazy as it sounds, a lot of it has been to do with working in a shop. I haven't exactly been doing a survey, but the feeling I get from most people isn't that they've been half Nelsoned into the shops to buy stuff for their loved ones. They actually seem like they want to do it, as if they like giving gifts to people they love. Some of them seem genuinely excited, as if they can't wait to hand them over. And old ladies who can't walk very well have got their coats on, got on buses and brought themselves into town to buy a gift voucher for their grandson, or whoever. And people have been buying books about Bert Trautmann for their dads who remember the 1956 Cup Final when he played on with a broken neck. And other people have been giggling at the till while they're buying books of jokes for their 52 year old dad, so he can sit in the chair full of Turkey and smashed on sherry with a paper hat on, and tell a few jokes before he passes out in front of the Queen. And two girls could barely speak when they asked me for a book called 'How to Poo at Work', which is full of diagrams of cubicles and lots of real advice on etiquette and all sorts. That will really make someone's Christmas Day (I hope).
And I've been food shopping twice. And today I was in there hours, and thank goodness I wasn't being time and motion studied because I did more laps of the fruit and veg section than they do laps of the track in the Grand Prix, and I didn't even know what some of the stuff was I was supposed to be buying. I'd heard of cloves of Garlic, but today I had to buy garlic-less cloves and I wasn't sure if they're fresh or powdered or they come in tubes or what. They didn't have any anyway. Or any lemons or cooking apples or muffins or red potatoes (so that's my Christmas ruined).
And I got my foot run over, and I had to ask a shelf stacker to look after my trolley while I went to go pee, because I'd been in there so long my bladder had packed up, but I didn't mind at all. I liked being in amongst people. People buying things to make a nice dinner for their mother who's getting over a stroke, or for their stepson who is home from uni (oh hang on, that was just me).
But whatever they were in there for, they were people buying things to help them to enjoy spending time with their loved ones, and that can't be a bad thing can it?
There's a Half Man Half Biscuit song, called It's Cliched to be Cynical at Christmas, and I just listened to it, and I think I am a cliche, because I moan a lot about Christmas. Well, moaning doesn't make the Christmas dinner, and it doesn't wrap presents, and it doesn't put any more love in the world.
So, I have put up a tree, and I have decorated it really badly, so it only looks any good from one particular angle if you don't look closely. And I sent 6 Christmas cards, including one to the Chemist to thank them for all the drugs, and I've bought one of just about every type of dead animal there is that you can eat.
And I'm looking forward to Christmas. And I don't need any presents, because I've already had a really special one. I got a parcel with biscuits in that were made by my small friend Harriet, and some of them had melted boiled sweets in the middle to look like stained glass, and some were in the shape of boots and hearts and I ate them with my cup of tea one morning, before I went off to work, to sell books to people. And it made me feel happy. And selling books and knowing Harriet are just two of the reasons why I want to be better at Christmas this year.
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