"Bah, humbug!", or why I hate Christmas
I'm moderately used to waking up in a cold sweat from nightmares in the last week of August. I had one last week, in fact, where I was late to school, couldn't find my classroom, and went to hide in the toilets only to find there was a big glass window with no curtains and my class were all looking in laughing at me. All perfectly rational; after six weeks of being out of the habit of teaching I'm bound to be anxious about going back to work again.
What I didn't expect was for the Christmas anxiety dreams to start this side of Halloween.
I'll say this for Tesco's Canadian Cheddar - it gives you a better class of nightmare. This one was very vivid; it was Christmas Eve, quarter to four (around the time you should be baking mince pies and listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols) and I hadn't started my Christmas shopping yet. Having made the decision to drive into town and see if Woolworths was open, I went out to find someone had broken into my car to borrow the spare tyre (what on earth was going on in my subconscious there?!) and the boot wouldn't shut, so I couldn't go. As I got more and more agitated about ruining Christmas by not getting anyone a present, I woke up feeling utterly lousy and unable to get back to sleep again.
Grrrr. I'd been trying to put off thinking about Christmas shopping. Of the dozen or so people I'm expected to buy for, I know three of them well enough to choose a well-matched present which they will love without any tearing out of hair. Everyone else, I agonise for weeks about and still get it wrong.
I'm good at seeing things people like and buying it for them. I'm just not great at doing it for everyone, all at once. I'd rather give someone a gift because I want to, rather than because it's Christmas and it's traditional. Put that together with everyone being uptight and trying to make it the most special day of the year, and being disappointed when it isn't, I'd far rather everyone just chilled out, bought presents if they felt moved to do so, and maybe even told me what they wanted, rather than saying "Oh, just look on my Amazon wishlist" or "Oh, don't worry about getting me anything" and then getting the hump if I don't. I'm very tempted just to give everyone a £10 book token and have done with it.
What I didn't expect was for the Christmas anxiety dreams to start this side of Halloween.
I'll say this for Tesco's Canadian Cheddar - it gives you a better class of nightmare. This one was very vivid; it was Christmas Eve, quarter to four (around the time you should be baking mince pies and listening to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols) and I hadn't started my Christmas shopping yet. Having made the decision to drive into town and see if Woolworths was open, I went out to find someone had broken into my car to borrow the spare tyre (what on earth was going on in my subconscious there?!) and the boot wouldn't shut, so I couldn't go. As I got more and more agitated about ruining Christmas by not getting anyone a present, I woke up feeling utterly lousy and unable to get back to sleep again.
Grrrr. I'd been trying to put off thinking about Christmas shopping. Of the dozen or so people I'm expected to buy for, I know three of them well enough to choose a well-matched present which they will love without any tearing out of hair. Everyone else, I agonise for weeks about and still get it wrong.
I'm good at seeing things people like and buying it for them. I'm just not great at doing it for everyone, all at once. I'd rather give someone a gift because I want to, rather than because it's Christmas and it's traditional. Put that together with everyone being uptight and trying to make it the most special day of the year, and being disappointed when it isn't, I'd far rather everyone just chilled out, bought presents if they felt moved to do so, and maybe even told me what they wanted, rather than saying "Oh, just look on my Amazon wishlist" or "Oh, don't worry about getting me anything" and then getting the hump if I don't. I'm very tempted just to give everyone a £10 book token and have done with it.
posted by Fluffy at 8:17 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home