Wednesday 24 December 2008

Things I love and hate about Christmas

Last night I had to brave the supermarket for the big Christmas shop. Big shop, only because I don't intend to be visiting the shops again until next year and the shopping won't be delivered until next Tuesday.

First stop Sainsbury's to spend my Nectar points that I'd been saving all year. The great thing is that now you can collect them from shopping online and all sorts of places as well as Sainsbury's I had LOADS of points. Enough that the shopping came to 23p after points! It is a good thing I'd only gone to Sainsbury's for the drinks and sweets - the store looked as though a plauge of locusts had just been through. I didn't feel much optimism for Asda.

Asda looked like a Saturday afternoon. The aisles were so full that you could hardly move, but apart from the decimated freezer department the shelves were fully stocked. A few hours later would have benefitted the shopping experience however - manners were certainly not in evidence from fellow shoppers, and I was barged several times by trolleys.  I'll be black and blue this morning. Bad manners and bad tempers were very obvious, and the festive spirit was sadly lacking. Happily I came away with nearly my entire list.

If Christmas shopping is the thing that I hate most about Christmas then Christmas decorations are the thing that I love most. I noticed last night that the area around Charlton has had a sudden explosion of festivity. Clearly most people work on the same basis as my parents when I was growing up that the week before Christmas is the time to decorate. Not true in my house. We love our Christmas decorations and like them up for as long as possible. This means that they generally go up at the beginning of Novemeber, pretty much as soon as Halloween is over. In the case of a well preserved pumpkin it might end up with a Santa's hat! Tinsel, lights, trees, snowglobes, you name it - we've got it. Santa's grotto has nothing on my living room!