Well today is the 24th of December 2010, which means I'm gonna do as is of expected of me and talk about Christmas & New Year.
Ahh Christmas, xmas, yuletide, Jesus' birthday...all different words for the same shitty day.
I'm an atheist for a start, so I don't celebrate Christmas for any sort of religious reason, to be honest I don't celebrate it at all.
When I was younger Christmas was so exciting. The sound of sleigh bells, putting out mince pies and carrots for Santa & Rudolph, a pile of presents, most of which i'd drawn love hearts next to in the Argos catalogue, a real family occassion.
As I have inevitably gotten older each year, I've found it has become less and less exciting. I firmly do believe that Christmas is only truly enjoyable if you are a child, if you have children or if you are extremely wealthy, I am none of those.
I am in that awkward in between stage where I'm too old to feel like a real part of my family anymore, but too young to even contemplate starting my own family. I am in a festive limbo.
And now I am, what you would call an adult, I don't get presents anymore, I get money. Not that i'm complaining, I'm a student with a mountain of debts so money is literally like gold dust, but it's just not got the same excitement as unwrapping the toy you've wanted all year (or in my case, because I'm a geek, the book you've wanted to read all year).
It's christmas eve as I write this, but I still refuse to believe that it actually is. There's no snow, no Home Alone on tv, no butterflies or giddy excitement, just an empty niggling feeling telling me that something's wrong, like you should be excited, cheer up you miserable cow.
Christmas dinner isn't even an excitement for me either because I am the vegetarian who doesn't like vegetables. My christmas dinner usually consists of yorkshire puddings, three types of potatoes (mashed, boiled, roast) and onion gravy. Yummy... some years it was even pizza and chips if my mum was cooking, which was more enjoyable for me to be honest. And Christmas pudding...yuck. Chistmas cake...yuck. Yule Log...hmm this is nice, no wait hang on, I am gonna vomit.
My favourite things about christmas are the good tv listings, drunkenly singing along to the Fairytale of New York after half a bottle of Port, time off school/college/uni, the smell of tinsel and tubs of Twiglets. But in theory I could do those things everyday if I wanted to, I just need to get Sky tv, a christmas cd, pack in uni and regularly shop at Iceland.
But...now onto New Year.
When I was younger it meant nothing to me except from meaning that I'd have to remember to write a different year when I dated the pages in my school books.
Now, at the ripe age of 19, it means 2 words - piss up.
New Year's Eve is the only night of the year when it's acceptable to snog the munter, drain the bar and sing as loudly and rubbishly as your lungs will allow.
I don't know about you, but I'll be glad to see the back of 2010.
Hey 2011, how you doin'? ;)
