WHY DECEMBER FREAKS ME OUT

Please understand me, I am not normally this ratty but early December seems to set off some weird paranoia exacerbated by those pressures inducing “flip boards” in stores, instilling in one’s brain that there are only so many days left to Christmas – not to encourage one, but an unsubtle way of saying “we want your money”.
Why do we have to be sucked into all this drama beats me?
My biggest nightmare is an outing to a departmental store in December. It is a bit like being heavily pregnant; hot, tired and uncomfortable, but luckily this will pass as will another 365 days.

In the heat of summer, my kid drags me to see some sweating techno kid dressed up as a Santa Claus, because he gets good pocket money for this act. Yet there is something charming about this charade until it comes to light that the reindeer alongside are not real and one is obliged to drag away a kid having a tantrum, with on-lookers aghast that this mother is insensitive.

Yes dear readers, events occur, but let us consider Christmas in Africa, not culturally but purely from a practical viewpoint. Personally I think that Christmas should be postponed to June or alternatively travel agents should have excessively cheap packages to Scandinavia.

In order not be a ‘stick-in-the-mud’ I, an avid environmentalist, purchased in a most immoral way, a plastic Christmas tree. With great encouragement from the family, boosting my morale I undertook to string up the lights on the said tree, which subsequently blew a fuse, tripped the electricity and we had a black-out. Sheepishly, I experienced a brief moment of admiration for Eskom who at least has the courtesy of an App to warn one.

Finally arrives the moment to decorate the tree, however having to endure snide remarks from guests as though I am an incompetent, as all baubles were positioned halfway up the tree, these folk being ignorant of the fact that cats consider these decorations to be entirely for their pleasure.

By now I simply long for a vacation, but have a moment of relief that I had already achieved this much – however, nowhere near as my dear cousin who manages to avoid all the madness by being kept extremely busy from Monday to Friday attending Pilates and Yoga sessions, indulging in physiotherapy, reflexology and meditation and even squeezes in few sessions of therapy for anti-aging and terminates the day with a glass of imported whiskey!

God reminds us that jealousy and envy are of Satan’s realm, but I am not deterred.