Christmas Has....Unfortunatly....Arrived Already

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

Yesterday was working the afternoon evening shift so was driving along from Sully in the Vale of Glamorgan to Bridgend. It's a journey which takes about forty minutes and it's OK enough. Though as I'm a cautious man normally allow myself fifteen minutes extra in case the unexpected occurs. (What it also does incidentally is give me a little bit of reading time before starting work).

Going to work on the afternoon/evening shift is a relatively calming experience because you're outside of the rush hour. For the most part the road I use is the A48 from Cardiff to Bridgend as what you're looking at here are fields, and more fields and even more fields. Though perhaps ominously along this route now are large signs announcing that the land has been purchased by so and so housebuilder. Something that bothers me as I suspect the houses being built are not for the people who truly need it. Anyway that's an issue for another day.

There are a few pub/restaurants along this route and at this moment the majority of them seems to be promoting this idea of kids lunches for a quid (you wonder why there's childhood obesity when kids can gorge themselves to the limit on what their stomachs and their parents' patience will allow). This time however was passing a particular pub/restaurant on the corner of an adjacent road.

This place in the seventeen years I've used this road was a pub/restaurant, a fish restaurant (which I thought was a one man operation until I saw a branch in Essex) something else which I've forgotten and now a pub/restaurant again. It's also in a relatively isolated spot, which presumably means they have to advertise deals/events as early as possible.

Yesterday however the part of the sign I caught was promoting "Christmas Day Meals".

And my thought was......kill me now.

Now regular readers will know that the older I get the more pre ghosts Scrooge like I am towards Christmas. Starting with the minor point that I'm an atheist. But the biggest thing I hate about the festive (ha!) season is the way that it seems to start before December. I get December/January for New Year. I accept that. But my mind wants to put blinkers on from January third until the thirtieth of November yet with every year there seems to be an attempt my mental barriers and go "Ho Ho Ho!" earlier. Every fabric of my being wants to shout "Bah humbug!" and run away.

This is August! Summer! (Or what constitutes for summer nowadays). Santa is already trying to get his claws into me already.

Mentioned this to my wife on return from work. "How much is it?" came the response. Given to be fair, that she does most of the Christmas cooking. Especially in the past few years when I've worked on Christmas day (that being the greatest excuse for not getting involved).

Power of advertising indeed.

Until the next time.