It’s nearly time nearly time to switch from our regular anxiety to our fancy Christmas anxiety. Yes, time to deck the halls with Christmas panic. But, seeing as it’s still November, this just the starter Christmas panic. Along the lines of…
Can I spend Christmas at home by myself?
Yes, yes, yes, we know there was a lockdown and Christmas was cancelled and we should be grateful that we might all be together again. But could we also just be at home by ourselves? The answer is always no.
Lights! Lights! Lights!
Will the lights we hung outside the house to be cheery (and have left out there all year round in all the weather, so that they are now beaten and tangled beyond all recognition) still work? How long will it take to untangle them? We can’t untangle them. The stress will kill us. We need to add more lights. Where did we put the other lights? Are they in the drawer of death? Can we untangle them? Can we just light them in a clump and pretend it’s an installation? We can’t afford the electricity bill anyway so fuck the lights. The power grid will probably have failed by then anyway.
How will I afford it?
The overdraft is hanging by a thread. Everything is suddenly a zillion times more expensive. Turkeys are about to cost more than small cars – if we can even get one. Will there be turkey dealers this year? Does this Christmas have to be bigger and better than ever on account of last year’s lost Christmas? But we are not earning any more money – and even without an economics degree we know that that doesn’t work. Should we be doing something else, something more? Something extra? Do we have the energy? THERE LITERALLY MIGHT NOT BE ANY ENERGY…
Should we do something different?
Life’s too short right? Should we go away? Or book shows? Exhibitions? An improving something? Improve ourselves? Should we? Yes. Will we? No.
Will there be any parties?
Won’t it be awful if there aren’t any parties? But also – won’t it be awful if there are parties?
Will it all get cancelled again?
Is there any point booking anything? Planning anything? At this point, can I invest emotionally or financially in anything ever again? Is it best just to stay floppy and accept the inevitable disappointment?
What do we want?
We ought to have a good answer for this by now. But the problem is that we don’t really anything but serious jewellery or two weeks in the Maldives or world peace. And that’s not going to happen. Might as well say bath oil.