Ah, Christmas. The light of the year. The time when one and all spark up the candles, kneel down to pray and live in harmony with our families.
Yeah, right. What are you really going to do? Get drunk, get fat and have an argument or two. Oh, and spend all of your money. Every last penny of it. If you haven’t shed all of your funds on gifts for your nearest and dearest, then you’ll sure as hell have hit your overdraft by Boxing Day. The sales encroach…
It’s 5am, freezing cold, and the alarm is going off. Why is the alarm going off? That’s right: you set it. Your head’s weighed down by an entire bottle of Bailey’s and (for some reason), sherry. And now it’s December 26th, and the alarm is making itself known in a shrill chirrup.
You put one leg out from under the duvet, and then the other, removing a Quality Street wrapper that’s stuck to your calf as you do so. You put on a bulbous pair of reindeer-shaped slippers and shuffle to the bathroom, where every available space has been taken up by unbranded bodycare bottles.
You make it down the stairs to the kitchen, where you dry swallow a couple of cold potatoes.
It’s time to get the bus, which is filled with haggard-looking people in various states of undress. When you get to town, it’s raining, and the snow that looked so beautiful on your Instagram yesterday is just mush. You slip in it to get to Next, and the cold of it seeps through your shoes as you stand in line for the doors to open.
It’s finally 9am, and the doors open a crack. People wearing beige from head to foot put their limbs through, turned animalistic in their gluttony. You push through too, sweat pouring down your Barbour-clad back. In the doorway you stumble, then right yourself. Squat-legged and wild-eyed, you stare around at the gleaming store as the sensible middle-aged turn rabid among its treasures.
You set your alarm for this. Someone moves with a stealthy lope towards the clocks you were looking at online last night.
Let the games begin.
