Hi all
Argh. How is it the 18th of the month already? I have been meaning to post but am struggling with any goals. December is a funny month, I tend to see it as ending at Christmas for some reason, with the next week a sort of odd in between sort of time.
Happily though, today is my last day in work before Christmas (I am very grateful for that). And unless anything terrible happens between now and about 4pm, it looks like I can finish up nicely.
It is funny you mention the proliferation of Christmas tat, Tortoise. A few years ago Mr B and I decided that we would not bother with Christmas decorations any more, and I got rid of all of ours (the staff in the charity shop up the road were delighted to accept them). When my mum died, I inherited a load more of the stuff and again, as per our agreed no decorations stance, off it all went to the charity shop.
Then, this year Mr B had a bit of a change of heart. It was Scroogy not to have any decorations up, he said, and I was the Grinch who stole Christmas in persisting with the anti decorations stance. He banged on about this quite a bit at the beginning of the month. It became tiresome.
Of course, when Mr B says this sort of thing what he really means is that he wants me to sort it out; he doesn’t expect to be the one to source and/or fund said tat, nor does he expect any involvement in putting up the trimmings or taking them down again. I remained resolute, for a while. I did not want a real tree, and did not want to buy a fake one. Or any baubles. For one thing, you have to store the stupid things all year.
Then I was in Asda doing a shop and – for some odd reason – found myself wandering up the ‘seasonal aisle’. They had a 3 foot tree which was really rather nice, and was only £12. I knew I had a string of lights and tree topping star which for some reason had escaped my earlier culls of tat at home, so against my better judgement I bought that and a very attractive box of gold baubles (26 of them, various sizes, some matt, some glossy and some glittery) which were £2. I really was very impressed once it was all up, as was Mr B* and all for the princely sum of £14, and as a bonus the neat little box the tree came in takes up very little space in the corner of a wardrobe.
Having caved in this year though, I am NOT going to be buying more baubles next year. When did that become a thing? When I was a child the same decorations came out every year and were carefully wrapped, boxed and put back in the attic in early January. I also remember the fun we used to have making our own – in those days, people always did that. My favourites were pine cones – collected earlier in the year and painted with glue, dusted with glitter and hung from lengths of cotton – and good old paper chains, which you never even see any more. Anyway, I have decided that any new additions should be home made. I think paper chains are in order for next year; heaven knows what Mr B will make of that, but hey, he started this nonsense
You are so right about the sparkly stuff in the shops, Tortoise; ultimately it is tat but it is so sparkly and pretty (and I am sure gets cheaper every year, no wonder people treat them as disposables these days) that it appeals to the magpie in all of us and is very hard to resist. As you say, best not to go shopping…
A very Merry Christmas to all (or, as a Christmas-loathing friend says, ‘Happy Mid Winter Break’).
Brava x
*I had him buy me lunch. Seemed fair.