Stressville

I am riding the Christmas Express to stressville and I am no longer sure why I punish myself every year with the same old antics.

I am exhausted with the lists, the decorations, the spendage, the hiding, the wrapping, the sorting, the everything.

I save really really hard for Christmas otherwise I wouldn't be able to afford it.  Granted, this takes a lot of the stress away.   I then go on a mad spending spree and buy just about everything I can lay my hands on.  My children don't get a lot during the year generally, so I do admit to going a bit mad at Christmas.  I then hide it throughout the property in any nook and cranny that I can find.  How hard is that?  I then have to remember where I have hidden things so as not to be buried alive, in front of the children, by an avalanche of gifts as I inadvertantly open the offending cupboard in front of prying eyes. 

I then have to sort and wrap.  In a haze of lost scissors, sticky tape, a marker pen and a note pad (to tot up the amount of  presents)   Sticky tape makes my hair go static which sticks to my face, which makes me more angry as I search again for the scissors that I just put down and the pen thats rolled under the bed...all the while watching a Virgin Catch Up programme that I have no chance of taking in as I am mostly under the bed finding aforementioned lost pen.   Arrrrrggggghhhhh!

I buy exactly the same amount of presents for all my children.  I don't spend an equal amount. The children do not care about how much money you spend they just care that their brother / sister doesn't get one more than them.  So, this causes me another headache because it is imperative that I get it right.  I cannot have one child with one less present.  Imagine the heartache that would cause...

This year I put up my tree only to find that I didn't  like it anymore.  It looked pathetic, sad and lonely.  So, I made The Husband take me to Homebase to purchase a new 7ft effort.  I also bought new baubles and tinsel.   Did you know that you now have to attach your own thread to the bauble just so you can hang the bloody thing on the bloody tree.  How hard does it all have to become?  In the good old days baubles used to come pre - threaded so you could just "hang and go".  I want "hang and go" back.  The amount of swear words used in our house as we all sat trying to thread bloody thread through the bloody hook on the bloody bauble, was terrible.   It took the fun right out of it.  We all had bauble rage...

Then I have to find time between work and general day to day living to fit in a massive Christmas food shop.  I collect savings stamps throughout the year so my food shop costs me nothing on the day.  I can buy turkey, veg, chocolate, booze, more chocolate, more booze and I don't have to pay a penny.  I always thought saving stamps were a bit cotterish but I wouldn't do it any other way now. I also wonder why I buy two ton of food for two days.  Its idiotic.  But you wouldn't NOT do it!

This Christmas Eve we are all going out for dinner.  The whole family.  So, I will be anxious whilst at the restaurant worrying whether , when I finally get home, I will have enough time to take the mountain of presents down the stairs to make it look like Father Christmas did visit.   Then I drink too much to counteract the stress, get a bit squiffy, spend far too much time giggling at the absurdity of it all and not enough time half eating the carrot, spilling the milk on the floor and smashing up the mince pie all in the name of Father Christmas.

Stockings all need to be quietly placed in all rooms to ensure no one is woken up.  And I have had a drink, and I am giggling more as I stumble about throwing stockings everywhere. We then work like a little conveyor belt lugging the presents from the bedroom to their final destination in the lounge. 

When its all done and you finally sit down exhausted and tipsy, you take stock.

The reason we do it is the look of pure excitement the children give you when they realise on Christmas morning that "he" has been, squeals of delight from them when they open their gifts.  The peace and quiet for five minutes whilst they enjoy playing with their presents.  The chat and laughter when you all sit down for Christmas dinner, wearing stupid paper hats, enjoying the crap plastic toys from the cracker, pretend laughing at the cracker jokes and eating far too much food.   The evening, slumped, full of food and drink, in the lounge playing Charades (or as we still call it "Give us a clue"....)

THATS why I do it.  THATS why I love it. 

I love being on the Christmas Express to stressville.  I don't want to get off...

Decision

I have today decided that I am taking a stand about people telling me how I should live my life.  I feel as an adult I can make decisons for myself thank you very much.

I feel it is not necessary for the government to tell me I am a binge drinker and therefore  take away my "buy one get one free" option at the supermarket on a Friday night.  I am 37 years old.  I know I am a binge drinker.  I am good at being a binge drinker and I want to binge drink for as cheap as possible.  Charging 45p a unit to alleviate binge drinking is harsh and makes me annoyed, but it wont make me stop.  

What specifically annoys me is that these decision have been taken out of my hands and I have no choice but to accept them.

If you want to smoke, smoke. I don't , but if you want to char your lungs to dried up prunes, so that you can no longer breath to full capacity, do it.   Do the goverment have to pass a law to make it illegal for shops to place them on a shelf in full view of everyone?   Just because you can no longer see them are you going to stop buying them?  Maybe it will deflect children from picking up the awful habit but do we have to alter our own adult lives to ensure that no child in the UK smokes again? 

I love food and I eat too much of it.  In twenty years time I dont want to be told the NHS will no longer treat me because I tried eating myself to death.  I am aware that being overweight is dangerous.  I am aware that eating a Macdonalds daily will make me the size of a house but I can still do it if I want.  I know that if my children sit and play computer games whilst eating pizza all day, every day they are probably going to be too obese to move and have to be airlifted from my home via a crane.    I know this.  I can still allow them to eat pizza and play computers if I want.  I appreciate not everyone has the capacity to make these decisions.     But, bloody hell ,do we have to take everything good away in favour of the small minority who don't.

I want to see my sons run competitive races in the school sports day.  Proper laugh themselves into a frenzy as their feet collapse through the well worn sack as they jump, breathless to the end.  I want to see them bite their tongue with concentration as they try and cross the line gripping their spoon with a REAL egg balanced on the end.  Not, as we currently do, throw a sponge imitation javelin that falls 2 inches from their feet, fifteen times, yawning all the while. 

I want them to play conkers.  I want them to use a corkscrew to pierce a hole in it and then thread an old school shoe lace through and then whack their knuckles whilst they launch their conker wildly at their opponent.  I want them to play cricket with a ball that doesn't resemble a washing up sponge.  Being a child is all about the rough and tumble, the fun and laughter.  The government will slowly take this all away until our children are frightened to do anything that resembles exercise.

I want to revert back to the good old days where common sense was allowed to take precedent over health and safety.  I want old people to be able to have gardens in their sheltered schemes without some "do gooder" telling them to remove it incase one of the planters falls on their heads.  I want our emergency services to be able to rescue someone in an emergency before having to carry out a full risk assessment potentially allowing someone to die. 

Mainly this situation makes me laugh because it's so ridiculous

 
But, seriously, who decided we could no longer be responsible enough to make our own decisions?

 I am not good at being told what to do.  I am less good at being forced into doing something I dont want to do.  I want it all to stop, today please.

I am going to take a stand.  However, I haven't yet made a decision on how I am going to do this......