skills Developments

It’s probably a sign of advancing years, but I’ve become more Yulephobic. It was different when my children were young; there was the excitement of Christmas Eve, leaving out a carrot for Rudolph and a mince pie for Father Christmas, trying to get them to go to sleep, the joy on their faces in the morning, opening their stockings and tearing the wrapping paper off the presents.

As you get older it’s really difficult to buy people presents, if you don’t spend enough you look like a cheapskate or if you do buy or receive an expensive present, it’s not exactly what you wanted - if any relatives are reading this blog all presents have been gratefully received, even the fridge magnets…

What I really hate about Christmas is the commercially induced mass hysteria that seems to infect people, there’s a lemming like rush towards shopping centres and malls. I steer clear of them at the best of times but the weeks before Christmas they become a ‘No-Go’ area. I’m more of an outdoors type of person, instead you’re all cooped up together in one room watching those horrendous TV ‘specials’ or those films that have been on every Christmas from time immemorial (it’s ‘Groundhog Day’ as the ‘Guns of Navarone’ is repeated on a loop).