I suppose you have all been wondering why I haven’t mentioned the “C” word yet?

Seeing as we are now into December, I suppose I can say it. Christmas. There. I’ve said it.

This is always one of the biggest rants at this time of year. Actually, from September onwards. Everyone is moaning about it so why not a word out of the greatest moaner of them all? Because I’m not bothered.

The four things that bugged me most were in order of irritation..

• The Office Christmas Party
• Jingly music in shops
• Ads on telly
• Decorations going up in late September

The Office Party was something I always dreaded. The subject would usually come up around July [“because we have to book the place”]. Then the rows would start as everyone would want to go somewhere different. The younger crowd always wanted something noisy and dancy. The older crowd [me] just wanted to go and get quietly pissed. And management wanted to go somewhere else [because it was cheaper]. So there would be endless fights and someone would suggest a vote and someone else would veto that.

When the night came, partners weren’t invited [talk about a cheap company!], so the same gang that had been bitching and back-stabbing for the last year all get together and pretended to be friends. And what was the only thing we had in common? Work! So work was the only topic of conversation. Our one night out from the office, and we talk about work!

Of course someone would usually have too much to drink [again, usually me] and would start cracking filthy jokes, grabbing at the secretaries and insulting management. Luckily by the end of the night, everyone was too bladdered to remember anyway.

Actually, there was one year I came up with one of my little party pieces, and they liked it so much that they all wrote it down. They woke in the morning and all wondered why they were carrying a napkin with a rude limerick on it and there were rumours for weeks as to who had come up with it. I kept quiet.

Oh all right! So you want to know what it was? Well, I’m not going to write the whole thing, but it started…

There was a young dude named McGrewder
Who met with a nude and he wooed her
The nude thought it rude
To be wooed in the nude
But McGrewder was shrewder and scr….

No. I’m not going to finish.

Jingly music in shopping centres and supermarkets used to drive me mad. It was supposed to put me in the Christmas spirit. Now the Christmas spirit [as far as shopping centres are concerned] has nothing to do with Peace on Earth. It’s all about trying to make me want to spend ridiculous amounts of money. They estimate that every household in Ireland is going to spend €1,339 this Christmas. On what? Anyway, all the “music” did was drive me insane and give me the urge to kill someone.

It doesn’t bother me any more because I don’t go to shopping centres or supermarkets any more. I do my groceries on the Internet. Brilliant! No parking problems. No wonky trolleys. No queueing. And best of all, no tacky screeching in my ears. The lot just gets delivered straight into my kitchen, so all I have to do is put the stuff away.

Ads on telly don’t bother me any more. What irritated me the most was the Christmassy jingly music, and people screeching on about making the purrrfect Christmas by buying some piece of tat or other.

Now I just use the mute button. Myself and Herself make up our own soundtrack to the now silent ads. I can guarantee we are better than the original. Though we might offend a few people.

Lastly there’s the decorations. These annoyed me when I lived in the city because people insisted on putting their trees up in November. Then they started decorating their houses, and putting tacky santas on the garage roof who shouted Ho Ho Ho when people passed.

Now I live in the country so all I see is the village being decorated. I now tell myself that this isn’t for Christmas [because that would make it commercial]. I tell myself that it’s to cheer us up over the dark winter nights [which is altruism]. And I feel much better. They can put them up in October and take them down in February as far as I’m concerned. I’m happy.

But at this stage you are all shouting that I’m a killjoy.

No I’m not. I like Christmas Day. We are all getting together here this Christmas. I’m looking forward to it.

But when I was a kid, Christmas was twelve days. Yes, that’s where the song comes from! The tree went up on the night of Christmas Eve so when we came down on Christmas morning, it was a very special day.

And the tree stayed up ’till Epiphany and then it all came down again. So we never got bored with it, and most of the needles were still on it.

So I like Christmas. I just don’t like talking about it until the time comes.