Bah Humbug or Ho, Ho, Ho?

Each day I can rely on at least one of my Facebook friends' status updates to make me smile. Today was Sam's turn with, 'Bah Humbug - I hate Christmas!'. I have to admire her honesty. The festive period is supposed to be a time of peace and joy, giving and loving - woe betide anyone who concedes to loathing it. After all, who wants to be likened to Scrooge?

I wonder what the Dickensian equivalent of neon lit cul-de-sacs with animatronic snowmen might have been. Was the average Christmas scene in those days as perfect as the one we now see nostalgically reproduced on cards . ( I say cards, but technically speaking, they're usually thick paper...... you know the type, the ones you receive from people, a) with no taste, b) who hate you c) who buy bumper boxes of assorted designs and run out of nice ones before they get to W in their address books). Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, skating on the frozen village pond, families playing parlour games in front of the freshly felled spruce..............

My contribution towards recreating this idyll for my own brood amounts to a family ticket for the outdoor, man-made ice-rink (curiously located in the gay quarter of town), M & S chestnut stuffing as an accompaniment to Christmas dinner, and an afternoon of parents vs kids on Wii Sport.

I tried to make my own chestnut stuffing once. Thought I'd find I use for the surplus conkers collected by the children and, in the process, almost poisoned everyone. Only a phone call to my mother in law, to ask advice on cooking methods, saved us from death by conker.

I always start the run-up to Christmas with good intentions and have even been known to buy the first of the presents as early as October. However, my smugness melts into free flowing panic when, with less than a week to go, I'm frantically posting season's greetings and trawling the 'net for suitable gifts.

For the last few years, I've been resolute that I would only send cards to family and friends too far away to visit. I think the downsizing of my Christmas card list occurred around about the same time I was forging my children's signatures on cards for their classmates. (58 in total) And their teachers. (2-3 per class)

I justify this decision by reminding myself that a worthy charity will benefit from my donation (it always amounts to more than I'd have spent on cards) AND a small part of the rain forest might be saved. Better still, now that my far-away friends have joined Facebook, I can save on stamps and post office queues by leaving my glad tidings on their virtual walls. If this trend continues, I fear the makers of Blu-Tack may come unstuck. Bah Humbug!

It's hardly surprising that, with 4 pints of Yorkshire blood flowing through my veins and a dad whose colleagues presented him with a Jewish skull cap as a symbol of his 'thriftiness', I'm becoming increasingly cynical at this time of year. 'Buy Bigger, Buy Better, Buy More,' we're urged. Those who do as they're told spill out, laden with Argos and Poundland bags, from the crowded malls. At least if the kiddies have their laptops/ games consoles/ mp3 players, they'll be occupied while the parents are out working to pay off the credit card sharks, cleverly disguised as Goldfish. Eee bahye gum-bug!

This year my children won't be unwrapping sledges and fluffy slippers on Christmas morning because snow and cold feet snow don't feature heavily in the Sunshine State. We'll be celebrating Baby Jesus' birthday with a dip in the jacuzzi, followed by a lunch of barbecued turkey legs and key lime pie. Ho, ho, ho!