Christmas comes but once a year, but only because it lasts eleven months sing hey bleeding nonny.
A friend's yuletide works outing is remarkable this year on two counts – firstly for being advertised in late August and secondly for being cancelled less than a week later on 3rd September, due to lack of interest. This is a genuine shame if last year's bash, to which we were invited, was anything to go by.
On the other hand, jolly company and well-stocked bar aside, I cannot find it in my heart to mourn a missed opportunity to indulge in seasonal fanned melon slices and festive slabs of Ye Firste Byrd of Wassail, especially since it would have been placed before me on 9th December, had those of a non-revelling persuasion not dictated
otherwise. As far as I'm concerned, a cancelled office knees-up means one less opportunity for someone to shovel overcooked stuffing balls onto my plate, however much I should have liked to Lambada with Mr Smales from accounts.
I cannot help but notice that another festive ritual is already underway in the supermarkets, however and that is the annual shunting around of basic foodstuffs and things one might actually want to buy, in favour of limitless aisles of Christmas cards, cardboard tubes of Stale Cheese Thyngs and prairie-length rows of those unspeakable humorous boxer shorts that everyone buys but nobody wants.
I have a few words of advice for the supermarketeers on this topic and they are:
DON'T DO IT!!!
I am so old, now, that I can remember when Christmas - the festival - lasted for three days and that was quite long enough, thank you. Presents started being smuggled into the house around mid-December; a quantity of annual treats was delivered in moderate amounts on or around December 23rd and that, basically was it. I have no
recollection at all of helping my mother make three weeks' siege rations for the freezer from September 1st onwards, nor do I remember panic-buying marrons glacés, glove-box dates or any of the other essentials. One or two larger-than-usual shopping forays and a delivery of the heavy stuff seemed, as far as memory serves, to cover things pretty well and we had wonderful Christmases that we remember with huge affection.
I say "Don't do it" for several reasons. Firstly, it simply irritates people if, on a warm early September evening they decide to light up the barbie and discover they can no longer buy lump charcoal but instead must grill their chops by the simple expedient of setting fire to three or four expensive "Realistic Spruce Trees – They Sing Carols." There is little I can think of more vexing to a hostess than to pass her guest a hamburger while the barbecue cranks out another chorus of "I Saw Three Ships".
Secondly, only people who like marzipan buy marzipan. It therefore stands to reason that, if they start buying it in late August, they are not only going to have to replace it at least five times before the cake needs decorating, they are going to have to apply it using long-handled implements inserted through the kitchen window, since the calorific content of that much almond paste, nibbled on a regular basis for four months solid is likely to increase both tonnage and girth by a significant amount.
Thirdly – oh yes and all their teeth will fall out but at least they'll have something to crimp the edges of the paste with.
Thirdly, we have become so consumerist a society that our houses generally contain more stuff and less space than they used to. This means finding all sorts of nooks and crannies in which to put the December gubbins bought early in a feverish panic and that way lies madness, as anyone who has resorted to storing raisins in her son's sock drawer will already know.
Finally – and perhaps most importantly – if we are all to start our Christmas shopping at the very beginning of September, not only will the milk of human kindness have turned to yoghurt in our veins no later than October 5th, where the hell are we supposed to put all the rubbish you want us to buy for Hallowe'en which, I might point out, has not, until recently, actually figured in a British Autumn calendar?
Personally, I would like to get all this nonsense out of the way as quickly as possible.
After all – how am I going to find room for January's influx of crème eggs if I've already got next year's unshelled pecans taking up valuable space?
