Gloomy tidings I bring

And so enter the giant bad mood. Obtusely. It's exactly one week till Christmas, which should be nice and glittery. Glittery in a virtual manner, naturally. Except it's not. It's not working. Why? Because there's other people.

How other people ruin Christmas every year:

1) Shopping
The shops are shut for one day, maybe two. A rough guess would put half the population out visitating, so they don't need food for either of those days anyway. Stockpiling would seem unnecessary. So why are there people buying huge, overflowing trolleys every moment of every day? What are they going to do with all that food? Do they really consume significantly more over a period of two days than they have over a normal weekend? Can one family actually use up an entirely trolleyload every single day? Given the the Royal Mail are struggling to deal with the sheer volume of things bought online, why are the shops still heaving? Where's my order from HMV?

2) Socialising
So everyone has to offload their endless supply of food/drink/canapes. Understandable. So commence the endless squabble over who goes where, when. It's not that complicated, but the simplest of arrangements becomes a military exercise of precision as soon as Christmas approaches. Not all that difficult, but hey, don't commit, there may be a better offer. No, there won't be. Just agree to something mutually easy. No? Make it more of a hassle? Go on then.

3) Moaning
(Which I am getting increasingly good at)
It's a holiday. It's a holiday when people eat too much food and exchange gifts. That's not a bad thing. All blokes have to start off about now going round with a po face and complaining about how much they hate it all. All women have to get into a flap, are you all ready for the big day? Well, no, it's a week away, I think cooking now would be a little premature. Yes, I do believe that Sainsburys will still have a turkey next week. No, it probably won't snow. Does it really matter? Noone's going to go and play in the park on Christmas Day, it just looks pretty when you look out, stick a nice snowy picture up. Look, there's snow all over the Christmas cards, look at them for a bit. No, it never snows, yes, it's all because I drive a car, indeed it was always perfect when you were a child, of course you're not confusing real life with films.

And this week, my own special contribution: being a nightmare. I'm stressing about things, I'm hurting and I'm being thoroughly unpleasant either by being snippit or whiny or generally going on. So, er, sorry.