Call me a Grinch, call me a Scrooge, call me whatever you like. But ever since I was abruptly thrown from the relative comfort and obliviousness of my teen years into my early adulthood, my celebrations of Christmas have taken on a slightly cynical and overall bitter edge. Here are twelve reasons why, and feel free to sing along to the tune of ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’;
One Job in Retail
Anyone who works in retail over the Christmas period can tell you – the holiday season is an absolutely unmitigated nightmare of Hellish proportions. Overflowing stockrooms, mothers wheeling their prams into your ankles and a highly-strung boss slowly losing their sanity as irate customers bark orders at them from over the counter. Next time your mum says, “Go and get a Christmas temp job”, take a tip from me; don’t.
Two Screaming Children
It is a guaranteed fact that, at any given time, in any shop between the top of Grafton Street and the bottom of Henry Street, from approximately the 10th day of December until the very last of the sale items has been ripped from the shelves, you will be able to find at least two children screaming for attention whilst their parent, dehydrated and wild-eyed, throws Christmas presents at an embittered and overworked cashier. Fact.
Three Christmas cards
If you’re lucky. One from your parents, one from that slightly eerie person in one of your modules who gives Christmas cards to the whole class, and one from Eircom. Admittedly, this I am happy about.
Four Michaelmas Term Essays
All due on the last day of term. Don’t you just appreciate so MUCH how every single module co-ordinator thinks that their subject is most important, and instead of continuous assessment, 100% of your final grade is based on that one ream of paper you have to, admittedly, panic-write at the very last minute, and then shove into the hands of a bewildered office administrator at ten minutes to the deadline? Which brings me to point five.
Five working printers
In the entire college. What’s that about?
Six relatives asking why you haven’t ‘settled down with someone’
Seriously grandma, get off my back. I’m 21, I’m in the prime of my life, and it’s either another 24 pack of Bavaria or ask someone out to dinner. At this moment in time, I know what I’d rather.
Seven Christmas parties
You might shift that one hot guy/girl in class who you’ve been wanting to get with since breathing down their neck at the very first lecture in first year. Alternatively, you might get with the eerie person I mentioned in number 3. It’s a thin line.
Eight mind-numbing hangovers
Seven of these hangovers are results of the aforementioned Christmas parties you’ve been attending. These hangovers will be filled with regret and self-loathing as you look at the 14 ‘Opened’ (and ‘Ignored’) Snapchats you sent to your ex the night before. The other one is the inevitable Stephen’s Day hangover, as you down wine in order to try and cope with your family.
Nine million calories
Or that’s what it feels like anyway, when you’re on your second helping of turkey dinner, and you realise there’s still a Christmas pudding (always forgetting that you don’t even LIKE Christmas pudding) to come. Not to mention the gargantuan leaning tower of Quality Street staring at you from the corner, whispering “eat me, eat me…” as you continue to bloat from the mashed potatoes you’ve just inhaled. And it’ll be even harder to shift those pounds, since the Sports Centre are planning on introducing higher charges. Great!
Ten euro on Secret Santa
Exactly. No more and no less. Seriously, guys. And between work, your class, your friends, your housemates and that one society you’re involved in, it feels like the whole world goes mad for the Christmas game clearly invented by Satan. You stress and stress over the absolutely PERFECT gift to get for someone who you don’t know particularly well, and might not even particularly like, only to receive something shitty like a Lynx gift set or, worse, a ‘joke’ present like a Justin Bieber calendar in return. Ha ha, lads. Ha ha.
Eleven Christmas arguments
Whether it’s with friends or family (it’s always bloody family though, isn’t it really?), the Christmas table is a minefield of material for arguments to navigate. That said, when it doesn’t involve you, it can be quite fun to sit back with a nice glass of your favourite alcoholic beverage and watch all the age-old family secrets and juicy grudges get dragged up and aired for the world to see again.
Twelve Christmas specials
Every show has a Christmas special these days, with bad celebrity cameos and dragging long-dead characters back from the brink (Doctor Who being the ultimate for this, if the 50th anniversary was anything to go by). No matter what poor gimmicks they attempt to employ, they’re all shit, and that’s all I have to say on the subject.
