It’s not that I don’t like Xmas. I do. I like the presents. I like the music. I like the parties. I like the decorations. I love LoveActually, The Muppet Christmas Carol and The Flint Street Nativity. I even like the hats you get in crackers.
But I really can’t stand Xmas food. It’s abominable. It’s like the sort of stuff people would scrape together during rationing. It’s all stodge made up of leftovers. I mean, what the hell is a Christmas pudding supposed to taste like? Tarmac? Creosote? I’m sorry, but any dish where the preparation includes ‘Setting it on fire for a bit’ is not going to be of the highest culinary quality.
I don’t mind brussels sprouts, though anyone who has to live with me after I’ve eaten them has serious cause for complaint. Turkey is alright, though basically it’s just a very large, very dry chicken. But Xmas cake? It’s like a normal cake that has rotted. And as for mince pies, jesus! Not even a dog would eat those if it wasn’t starving. Those little sods could survive a nuclear holocaust, and they’d still taste the same afterwards. My better half bought some ‘mince puffs’; I told her it wasn’t politically correct to call them that any more.
Mulled wine? Excuse me, I don’t have a cold, I like my wine chilled, not heated up and with random herbs strewn across the surface.
Plus there’s the whole Christmas holiday. Where you can’t do any work, where you can’t go out, can’t see your friends, where someone else is deciding when you eat, and how much gets put on your plate, where you even have to take a vote on what you watch on television, even though it doesn’t really matter because inevitably people will be talking, texting, farting and snoring throughout. I mean, it’s all appreciated. But if anyone wonders why I’m so miserable and spend the whole time reading...