Hear the bells…

Hello readers !!

We usually have our Chrimbo shopping all done by now, but we haven’t even started it yet. The pressure is well and truly on. The kids want everything in the Argos book including lawnmowers and beds. I’m bringing them to see Santa today ( not the real one, some bloke in a department store, but keep that to yourself ).

I remember being brought to see Santa as a child, that is me being the child, not Santa. Standing outside Switzers (now Brown Thomas ) in the freezing cold for 4 hours amazing at the technology used in the window displays when a reindeer would move his head slightly to the left and then back again. Witchcraft I thought. You would then be led into see Santa and all of a sudden it was like an oven. You’d sit on his lap and blurt out something about bikes and then he’d say ok and hand you a parcel. Oh the excitement of the parcel ! What could it be ??? Rip the thing apart and find out that it’s a plastic thing made in Taiwan which costs about 50p in Hector Grey’s but for which you paid about 5 punts ! But you didn’t care because it came from Santa and that’s all that mattered.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas, I just hate the pressure that comes with the build up. I’m crap at buying presents. There was a kid in our class in primary school who was confined to a wheelchair God bless him and for Christmas we did a Kris Kingle and I bought him a pump.

The rest of the class were disgusted and worse thing was that I couldn’t wait to give the present. I thought he’d love it. I was even trying to give him hints at what it was before the presenting of the eh…presents to all who were present. I was giving it the pumping mime ( looked like I was doing the wanker hand wave )

It was like buying a blind person some dog food.

I’m useless at buying presents. Even last year, the little fellahs were marveling at their new bikes on Christmas morning when I told them they had better enjoy the new bikes as it had taken me hours to put them together the previous night. They looked at me puzzlingly ! I said ‘Look ! The Wizard of Oz is on !’

Best of luck to you all in your Christmas quests, be safe out there !