Yaaaaaaaaay Xmas

It's come around again. I love xmas.

I have taken care of a majority of the shopping and have bits and bobs to do. I love getting most of it done early, it means you can swan about selecting gifts in a little envelope of calm while everyone else is screaming and panicking.

I intend to enjoy my shopping. Take time out to have a pint or a hot toddy. Maybe some roast chestnuts. Maybe I will just sit at the front of the queue and irritate people by having a long conversation with the girl at the checkout (I'd neverdo that!).

I do worry that the sheer raging materialism ruins the point of xmas. It's becoming just some time off with presents and a big meal in the middle. I'd like to recapture the magic that it held for me as a child.

Ok, I know what you are thinking. It just doesn't work like that. Fair enough, I will still remind myself to be thankful about how cool everything is. I shall try not to get grumpy and try to remember the whole ethos of the day. Not the religious bollocks just the fact that it should be a day of cheer and remembering how bloody lucky we are not to be living in some tin pot country with a psychopath as lifetime presidente.

I wont be ducking bullets (unless I run on the railway station wearing a backpack), it will have enough to eat (way more than I need), I wont have to worry about my family (except for embarrassing presents) all in all I have it pretty sweet.

I am not a great philanthropist, I am certainly no florence nightingale, I don't work in a soup kitchen so the least I can do is spare a thought for the less fortunate and maybe next year try to do more.

So, I made gingerbread the other day. I don't really like the stuff but it was for an idea I had. I thought it'd be nice to give my family some ginger bread in a festive box. The idea was better than the execution. I hate to say it, I am an ideas man. In my head they were beautifully presented sparkling boxes fll of the wonder of ylue tide. In reality they were hand made boxes with ginger bread and candy canes (this may be the only time I will accept the word candy as part of the English language, Americans I am looking at you!) in them. I guess it's the thought that counts but it was so much better in my head!