Ah December....
you bastard.
Yes, for those of you who know me (and let's face it, that's all of you - I'm no famous blogger..er) you know that I hate Christmas. I know, I know, "but Lizzy," I hear you cry, "it's so joyous and wonderful and fun and there's presents and family and it's the BEST!"
I know. But I still hate it. And here are the reasons why.
Children, children everywhere and not a drop to drink.
I spend Christmas Evening and Day with 3 wonderful, excellent children that I love to death. These are my siblings. For them, Christmas starts at dawn. Dawn is not a time I like to experience. We do not get on. I do not function at dawn. But I have no choice, I will have stayed up till midnight wrapping presents and eating carrots (we leave them for the reindeer) only to be awoken around 4:45am by children. It's as though they have adrenalin pumping through their veins as they sleep so that by the time they wake up my parents and I have to pull them down from the ceiling so that they can unwrap their presents. Presents + adrenalin turn my usually nicely tempered, fun siblings into squabbling, selfish crazy people. In miniature. Actually one of them's kinda getting tall now. Beside the point. Moving on.
Present Phobia
I have one. I don't like unwrapping presents, and I don't like watching people unwrap presents I have bought for them. Merry Christmas! Urgh.
Toowoomba
My extended family live in Toowoomba. We often go there for Christmas. The last time I spent any amount of time in Toowoomba I got a tic on my neck. Also it has a lot of flowers. These two facts are all I know about it. I'm sure it has lots of great features but I really can't stand being there.
Expectation
"It's going to be lovely, we'll only stay a few hours, we'll eat food, exchange pleasantries and presents and get out of there" inevitably turns into "I didn't realise she would bring HIM and I can't believe we forgot the present for blah, and why did noone think to preorder the chicken - such and such spent so long in the kitchen I felt awful, urgh why is it so HOT?!"
Tee-total
I have a self-imposed alcohol ban for Christmas Day. I am far too candid as it is, the last thing I need to have is less inhibitions when surrounded by people I'm related to who don't necessarily know what I really think about politics, or how much time I really spend on the internet and how much I really don't want to be there. Particularly considering someone in my extended family once said "If I were your father I wouldn't allow you to do that (probably get a peircing or move in with a boyfriend or something else benign and boring) and I replied "lucky for both of us you're not then hey?" I was sober. Very sober.
Reviewing this list I'm considering revoking this ban.
*******
So, this year I decided to be positive. I've been compiling a mental list of all the things that are good about Christmas (keeping in mind that I see my family regularly so "seeing my family" doesn't really count). Here is the list.
1. Those delicious shortbread biscuits that come in tins
2. Stone fruit
I honestly can't think of anything else. My list of 2 things is comprised entirely of food. Om nom nom, Merry Christmas.
