I can't bear the cacophony of Christmas piped music that is played in shops from about October - how the shop assistants haven't beaten the speakers to a pulp is beyond me. After five minutes of 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer' and other nauseating nonsense, I want to murder a muppet, torpedo a teddy or strangle a Cindy doll or all three!
I also find the curious behaviour of families just before Christmas odd - the frantic stocking up of food and drink. Watch a family, or even just a couple, fill their supermarket trollies with enough for a long siege, despite the shops only being closed for three days at the most.
Then there's the 'it's for the children' brigade - have you ever noticed that the small child with an overwhelming array of dazzling presents will play happily with one of the boxes said presents arrived in, rather negating the need for expenditure on treasures for his or her edification. It is a salutary lesson remembering that in some parts of the world children barely get enough to eat, let alone receive gifts.
Families who see each other rarely (and there is a reason for that - they can't bear to be in the same room together) somehow feel duty bound to pretend filial affection, sit around a table together, eat too much, drink too much and then wonder why hostility becomes festering animosity. This is not helped by the fact that the weather is usually dull, there are no shops open and nothing to do for three days. No wonder there are so many families at the sales after Christmas - they don't want to buy anything, just get away from Aunty Chris or Uncle Brian. It is not quite so bad when there are children - at least half a day can be spent playing with their toys under the axiom of 'checking it is working properly'. (Just before Christmas a trip to Hamleys is quite an eye-opener - the place is packed out with fathers playing with train sets - not a child in sight!)
I love my own family dearly, but more than a couple of days together and we revert to childhood patterns of behaviour and bicker about the most ridiculous things. One year I had an argument with my sister about how old our brother is - neither of us would back down (I found out later she was right - she usually is! Grrrgh!!!) I usually become stony-faced and stubborn, refusing to do much in the way of housework and retreating into reading.
Staying with in-laws can be fraught with danger too. One tiny criticism of my mother-in-law's 'perfect' son and there used to be a threatening silence which could last for 24 hours. This, you would think, might be a relief from the relentless Christmas cheer, but a chilly absence of words and passive-aggressive behaviour can be very disturbing. One year I brought several books to to get me through the boredom of the holiday and proceeded to read throughout the usual rubbish TV - Eastenders depressive dive into some crisis or another and repeats of Fools and Horses, Mary Poppins and the Great Escape. Escaping into my choice of fantasy turned out to be a mistake - I was considered rude not contributing to the collective couch potato watch. I protested to my then husband that I thought it rude to force me to watch crap TV for hours on end - now that could be called relative-abuse!
One year, in desperation, I insisted we play party games. Under protest, this was attempted and it was certainly the most fun any of us had had in several Christmases (we don't get out much!). Watching my pompous father-in-law pushing a matchbox along the carpet in competition with a mad aunt was hysterical. The version of Call my Bluff was a great success - my mother-in-law won consistently, presumably because she was the most convincing liar.
