And so this is Christmas. Well, nearly. The boughs are laden (or is that decked?) with holly. Although actually, holly is really hard to find nowadays. I'm big on the whole Christmas thing and used to love getting the holly and mistletoe from a farm shop up the road from my mum's place (or raiding it from local fields) but it's way harder to get in London unless you go to the stupidly expensive shops - and I object to paying £10 for a few measly sprigs of stuff I used to pick for free in abundance.
Every time Christmas comes around, I'm reminded of the job that I failed to get that I really wanted. I was about 16 and they advertised for Christmas elves to help out Santa at my local department store. I thought this sounded cool - wrapping presents and seeing smiley kids all day (OK, they'd probably be little scroats who kicked Santa and demanded stupidly expensive presents, but I was young and naive) And OK, that wasn't the only reason I wanted the job. I'd noticed that lots of the kids were dragged to see Santa by their foxy older brothers and so there could be a pulling opportunity for a bird wearing a short elven frock.
So, I went in and asked for an application form. This, being a department store that had loads of jobs going year-round, was a standard job application form. It included questions like 'What are your qualifications for the job?' and 'What skills do you have that would be particularly appropriate?'
I thought that writing 'Good at wrapping presents.' and 'Like working with kids.' would be good things to include. OK, I admit that writing an entire story about how I used to work for Santa in the North Pole but left to seek my fortunes elsewhere may have been going too far, but, as I said, I was young and naive. And surprisingly enough, didn't get the job, no doubt because they assumed that I was a barking loon (and were probably right.)
I did, however, get a job a couple of years later in the lingerie department of another department store. Cue Christmas Eve and hundreds of men queuing to buy their partners red nylon undies. Closely followed by Boxing Day, when hundreds of women queued to swap the nylon red undies for white cotton pants. I'm not sure that any of the Christmas stock we got in of the red and nylon variety (the only time of year we ever got it in was Christmas) was ever worn by anyone. But still, the men hopefully queued up.
Undies aside, this year is a bit of a strange year for me, in that it's the first time in six years that I haven't been with the ex at Christmas (obviously, at the time, he wasn't the ex cos that would just be weird). After that amount of time, there are traditions you get into and it's odd not doing them this year; from getting the Christmas tree on 1st December through to our traditional Christmas Day breakfast, and (OK, I don't miss this one) him refusing to tell me anything he wanted for Christmas other than something that cost about £400 that I then ended up getting him 'cos I wanted to get him something he wanted, meaning I had to give up essentials like beer for most of the Spring. This year, instead, I'll be getting hammered with a group of mates - none of whom have requested £400 presents.
I have, however, spent a fortune on a deeply cool innovation from Firebox for several friends. It's a fake cat that really purrs and really breathes (with the help of a couple of AA batteries.) Yes, it's useless, but what the hell - it looks very cute and given that many of my mates are equally mad cat lady as I am, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I bought one for myself in the hope that it will scare off the mice who always turn up in my flat at this time of year (that's my excuse anyway, cos I'm a grown woman who really should be above such things as buying myself a glorified cuddly toy.)
So, Christmas beckons, hangovers beckon and a million articles on how to have the sexiest New Year ever need to be written.
Happy Christmas and all that.
Consequences of Excessive Masturbation
Clearly not an excuse to sell herbal supplements.