Just call me "The Grinch" and a "Bah Humbug" to you

Is it possible to be sick of Christmas already....I feel like the build up started back in July when I received my first Studio Christmas catalogue and one of my good friends started counting down in days.

Don't get me wrong I love the time of year its truly my favourite, apart from springtime blossom or long hot summer days anyway you get my drift. Its just that as I am getting older the time is flying by at warp speed anyway and having all the marketeers trying to rush through to the next big thing is just making it worse. The kids birthdays are in October and they barely get through to the end of the day before they are asking for some toy been advertised on CartoonNetwork for Christmas.

When I was little, the summer holidays finished it was harvest festival time, something the school made us sing alot about and I never really understood it. Then came Guy Fawkes, November the 5th. Fireworks night was massive in the calendar, every year the school made us do some kind of project on Mr Fawkes history. I was consumed with worry as to what my guy was going to be stuffed with and whose clothes I could "borrow" to make it with. Christmas was a distant event in the far future and there were much more immediate and pressing concerns to think about, like how many pairs of gloves to be worn on the NIGHT and should I stay at home or go to a display. The advertisers seem to have knocked the wind out of these events consuming our minds with the 25th of December. Even poor Halloween making a brave attempted to bring Autumn back its own festivals is struggling against the onslaught of the mighty Christmas promotions.

So this year, I'm going to try and not mention the C word until at least the last week November and we are going to enjoy our Halloween party and our local town fireworks display, Christmas can just get back into its proper Winter place.

Feeling all Gloria Gaynor “I survived” !!

I did it, I pulled the party off, with a little help from family and friends. Everyone said they had a lovely time and that the party was brilliant, and quiet frankly I don’t care if they are all lying. Mooki loved every minute of it, she looked gorgeous even if I do say so myself and she was an excellent hostess. I managed to embarrass her only once and she was horrible to me only once so that was pretty good going too. I spent most of the time with my head down trying not to be too visible, while her brothers spent as much time in the limelight as possible and her dad just continually poured out cups of squash. 9 ltrs of coke and 9 ltrs of lemonade went with in the first 45 minutes. The DJ was an arse who turned up late and started playing the music late which really peed me and her dad off, but mooki didn’t seem to mind, he has since sent me a customer satisfaction questionnaire which I refuse to fill out because I will probably write something defamatory that he’ll then sue me for.

Went for low key understated dressing for the party with a pair of skinny jeans and a pretty but not showy top and no one batted an eyelid. I was planning on wearing this really cool “vampire” dressing up outfit I’d picked up from Tesco for £15 and while I ignored her protests of “mum you can’t wear that !!” when 6 year old looked at me and said “mummy its not dressing up party and please don’t wear that” I relented and decided not to. Since the party I have added fake black nails and extra long lashes to go with my Vamp dress for trick or treating next Sunday (can’t wait :) ). My mother on the other hand, yes grandmother to birthday girl, decided she would pull out all the stops and where the sparkliest, shiniest and quiet possibly loudest thing in her wardrobe. It did raise an eyebrow on my face when I saw it and I wanted to ask her what the hell did she think she was playing at when I realised that I was being just like my kids and does it really matter.

Sunday we all crashed a burned. I was so tired and still so wired it wasn’t true. None of us felt like doing anything and we were all pretty grumpy. We had to wake the birthday girl up to open her presents, we’d all been sitting downstairs for 2 hours waiting for her and we were starting to get annoyed. So that started things off being tetchy. It took her 21/2 hours to open all her presents and her 74 birthday cards. At the end of this the boys were climbing up the walls with boredom and had started playing with her new makeup and bath stuff. You can imagine that didn’t go down to well. So when the in-laws arrived it was a relief to go out for Sunday dinner and not have to cook. The rest of Sunday was spent trying not to shout at each other and it was mostly successful.

We’re a week on and I am still recovering, except we have Ninja’s birthday at Kids Play tomorrow so that’ll be fun, 15 5 & 6 year olds running around that I don’t actually know, but I am sure it will feel a lot easier than last weeks event !!