Jingle Hell

Today is Friday 18 December, and I am beginning to panic.

I have a tree. That alone seems like a huge achievement this year. I also even managed to dig out last year's IKEA wreath, hang it up, find fresh batteries for it, and turn a blind eye to the appropriacy (or otherwise) of festooning my front door with red lights.

I say "I have a tree", but actually, I have two trees. One large one that I decorated ("because it's so big that you won't be able to reach the high branches darlings!" and "No, this decoration - this handblown glass ball filled with peacock feathers and lovingly transported all the way back from Cape Town - is for the big tree, but here's a lovely decoration you made in nursery when you were two, and look! It's got your face on it!") and another small one that the kids decorated/the ghosts of day-glo Christmases pasts barfed over, opinion regarding said tree being polarised between those who are under the age of seven ("IT'S JUST SO BEAUTIFOOOOOOL MUMMY") and those who are not ("MY EYES, MY EYES!!!" *withdraws self to lie down in the dark for a while*).

This not particularly heartwarming tale of two trees and the crappy selfish parenting involved in their decoration represents pretty much the extent of my Christmas preparedness, which at this stage in proceedings is alarming. So I figured, in the time-honoured spirit of festive procrastination, that I would make a list of all that I had achieved thus far, and try to spur myself into action that way - by scaring myself shitless.

Presents bought: probably about 30% of what I need
Presents bought which have actually arrived: 0
Presents I have bought for myself: 2 5 oh ok fine... about 7
Presents I have bought for myself which have arrived: all 7 8
Festive food purchased: nil

Cards sent: zero, which is neither an improvement or a decline over last year (or the year before, or the year before that)
Daydreams about mulled wine indulged in: 9,376,210 (having one right now in fact)
Desire to go shopping: literally a negative value, which is amazing bearing in mind that I've always thought that if I was an X-Man, shopping would be my superpower (not that useful, I know, when you have to save the world, but I can only work with what I've got)
Minutes spent on Pinterest drooling over home made wreaths, imaginatively sculpted mince pies, and caring handcrafted Christmas gifts: 576
Minutes spent making wreaths, caring handcrafted Christmas gifts, and/or mince pies of any description, imaginative or otherwise: 0
Minutes spent daydreaming about eating mince pies: 1 (right now)

I could go on, but I imagine you've already got my drift.

This happens pretty much every year. I start to get excited about the festive season in July (when, if Facebook is to be believed, other, frighteningly organised, people begin their preparations). This is followed almost immediately by forgetting altogether that Christmas even exists, and then waking up with a dry mouth and sweating palms on 1 December and becoming almost immediately so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of ubiquitous Christmas overplanning porn peddled by the likes of Pinterest that I end up stuck, hyperventilating, in a stalemate of decision-making failure. So no, I have not crocheted a sky full of sparkly snowflakes. I have not put on wellington boots and yomped the woods foraging for dead stuff to arrange artistically into an alternative, eco-friendly wreath. I have omitted to order personalised Christmas pyjamas/Santa sacks for the small people (actually I do feel a bit bad about this one, since they're cute and I do generally love an excuse to internet shop), nor have I made my own Christmas pudding, complete with hand-picked organic fruit which I put in a mason jar with a bottle of cask-aged calvados three months ago to infuse. I've done bugger all, in fact.

Oh Christmas. I love you, I hate you. You warm me with all the fuzzy family feeling of togetherness only for me to remember that many of those people are thousands of miles away. You fill my head with impossibly pristine images of a picture-perfect Christmas morning, all shining-eyed, rosy-cheeked children, novelty knitwear, and chinking crystal flutes of Bollinger, when in my heart of hearts I know it will be fights, protracted explanations of the meaning of fairness, and a frantic search for AAA batteries followed by a tsunami of discarded gift wrap and several hours spent picking fossilized play-doh out of the furniture, most likely all viewed squinty-eyed through the fug of a Christmas Eve-induced hangover. But I love you anyway. I am a big-time sucker for you, Christmas. I just wish you weren't so much bloody effort.

Fast-forward twenty-four hours, and it's now the evening of Saturday 19th December. Three hours (which felt more like three years) spent on Singapore's main shopping drag this afternoon, and the Hooker Christmas is in better shape (though in fairness it couldn't have been much worse than it was this time yesterday).

Presents purchased: approximately five hundred

Presents wrapped: all of those that have arrived (*high fives self and does small smug happy dance*)

I am physically and mentally spent. My feet ache, my head aches, I've got a weird little twitch going in my eye muscle, and a slight blurring of vision which a small part of me is concerned may indicate a brain haemmorhage brought on by the noise, darkness, and strobe lights of Abercrombie and Fitch but could of course just be because it's Saturday night and I've not had a glass of wine yet. But I'm done, and Christmas will happen after all. I even have mince pies. Yes, they came from Marks & Spencer, in a box, and there's nothing imaginative about them. But nobody likes mince pies anyway. I'll just throw them away in February, like I always do, with the mixed nuts and the mini Christmas pudding.

So, I'm finished, in every single conceivable sense of the word. Finished physically, mentally, emotionally, financially. But also, thank the Christmas gods, finished with planning, shopping, wrapping, fretting, failing. So, Merry Christmas everyone. May your puddings be full of silver, your glasses charged with your favourite festive tipple, and your children better behaved than mine (which will almost inevitably be the case, more's the pity). You'll find me slumped under the tree (the big one, naturally), clutching an empty bottle of Hendricks in one hand and a roll of sellotape in the other, lying on Lego bricks, play-doh in my hair, while the Minions movie plays on repeat in the background. 

And it will be perfect - not Pinterest's vision of perfect, for sure, but perfect nevertheless.