woke up this morning to find God had bestowed a belated birthday/early Christmas present on me…

Now I know most normal people would look at this with utter delight, but because I am basically the love child of David Mitchell and Richard Ayoade I naturally am disgruntled by this sight. If God had four Christmas parties to attend to and several board meetings lined up I’m sure He’d feel the same.

So my day started with that, followed by the world’s most middle class Christmas argument, fuelled by the family having too many Christmas lights:

“We’re not putting multiple sets of lights on the tree.”

“But look, these are similar.”

“The clue is in the word ‘similar’. They’re not the same.”

“We can make it work. Lets lie them out first and turn them on…”

“Oh just turn the frigging lights off. Look, I’m having to get off my backside now to do something.”

“Wow, that language is a bit strong.”

“Dad, if you’re going to judge Mum’s use of the word ‘backside’ then seriously we’ve got issues. Also, I’ve just found another box of lights…”

I kid you not, Times Square has nothing on the Bennett household right now.

The evening has now drawn to a close with four adults heckling The Snowman (35 years later and I still think it’s nothing on the 1998 often overlooked classic The Bear)

(Why did you take the bear from his home! Then the girl loses her toy and starts crying even though her Mum gets her a replacement and then…well it’s about then that I start to lose my faith in humanity and become an emotional wreck. It’s a rapid spiral I grant you.)

Anyway, I digress (and have had multiple Christmas parties and realise I should really get this post written before Mariah gets put back into her festive cave with Michael Buble and half of Band Aid).

Ah Christmas, that wonderful time of year where decorations cover the shops, festive TV adverts fill our little homes and language that in any other context would be weird and mildly uncomfortable is apparently acceptable.

It’s also a time for those working in marketing to don their “how far can we push this?” hat in a bid to convince consumers that very uninspiring, essential, items are really amazing things.

 

That said, I did wonder if we were approaching the end of the world and/or Christianity when, before Advent had even begun, I saw this in Wilko…

(Naturally I stock piled a lot of thermal leggings and chocolate in preparation for what would happen on the 14th December. Spoiler – my boss still expected me to be in work and double spoiler the Devil didn’t make an appearance. Let down.)

As for me this is the first Christmas in my new house (would be smug but have no money), I set out on the very new experience of buying decorations for one’s own home. Typically the conversation in my childhood around buying festive ornaments has gone something like this:

Alice: “Mum can we buy this bauble?”

Mumma Bennett: “How much is it?”

Alice: “£4.”

Mumma Bennett: “No.”

(Still better dialogue than Twilight.)

And, to be fair, one must be watchful because if you’re not careful the big retailers can run rings around you. Take these decorations for example. Now although they’ve been reduced in price, if you look very closely you notice there’s actually nothing ruddy well there.

(Don’t worry, it took a while to spot it myself.)

This year however the conversation on my purchase of decorations was altogether different…

Mumma Bennett: “You must buy lights.”

Alice: “Ok. Here, what about these?”

Mumma Bennett: “Oh no! That many will not do, you need more. Here, get the next box up.”

Alice: “Really?”

Mumma Bennett: “Trust me, a tree with too few lights is worse than one with too many. They’re worth paying the price for.”

*Days later*

Alice: “Hey Mum, it’s Alice. So what you were saying about lights the other day…yeah, I have too many. Decided to put them around the large canvas and hope they don’t burn the house down. How flammable is oil paint? In other news, Georgi has never seen mulled wine in a bottle and the other Alice thinks Tree Skirts are the work of black magic. Gotta dash, speak soon!”

When I returned home next I returned the favour of giving bad advice by getting them to play this awful, awful song:

Other than the minor health and safety issue of LEDs and poorly labelled products, I’ve discovered that there are also a great wonder of WTF goods out there to be bought. E.g. when it comes to buying Christmas interiors I draw the line at pooping into an elf.

I mean, this girl has standards.

And as for this craze which randomly appeared overnight and now is at every Christmas market…what?

I know a way to radically reduce your costs and overheads. You get a stick and sell it – it’s called a stick man. Even better, get a few and you have this wonderful thing called kindling which you can set on fire and use to keep warm. No need to thank me.

But then I see a pair of punny socks and my blood pressure drops a little.

Then I see this sign and I hope to goodness that the designer drew their inspiration from Friends.

If not than this whole hipster craze really needs to calm the shizz down.

Oh, and for anyone buying me presents this year, don’t get me this:

Or this:

And women, if you really want to please your man, may I recommend you take him to this stand and leave him whilst you do the present shopping?

So there you have it, another Christmas edition of Alice Bennett’s inner warped, deeply sarcastic, but wonderfully enlightening mind. Things to take away from this piece:

• The Bear is amazing, snow on roads is not
• Christmas lights were sent by God to test us, just like a number of stupid products being sold under the umbrella terms “festive” and “Christmassy”
• Thermal leggings are NOT a suitable present.

 

So Merry Christmas to all, and to all may your gingerbread lattes be overflowing and your heads forever covered by wolf hats.

 

AB. x