I Am The Christmas Curmudgeon Part Two: Christmas Lights

Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.

It is four eight on a Sunday evening at time of writing. I'm alone in the apartment. Wife and daughter are out at Penarth Town Centre where the Christmas lights are going to be switched on by Welsh comedian Owen Money.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly I'm listening to Watford versus West Ham. The first match for the new manager David Moyes. A man whose last job resulted in the relegation of Sunderland, so his appointment seems as confusing as it is rage inducing (indeed as I'm writing this West Ham are a goal down).

But the other reason is this. I don't understand the attraction of Christmas lights other than as a present for the electricity company once the trading association pays the bill.

I am in the position of Christmas curmudgeon. The wife has always been into the Christmas trinkets, and so surprisingly as she's now a teenager is daughter. They love it. They're excited by it. Me? I look at Christmas decorations and it does nothing to me at all.

Perhaps part of the reason is that I've been working on Christmas day for the past two years and will do so again next month. But mainly it's because whatever Christmas spirit I possessed has been drained out of me. It's just a time of the year. A milestone towards the beginning of the next one.

Especially in November.

It's November for goodness sake. I don't want Christmas before November. I want the Christmas blinkers permanently fixed on my face before December first. Then then I'll acknowledge it's time to get presents for people I need to give to but have no idea what to get.

So what will lights do? I'm fifty three not five. My sense of wonder has long since gone. Except perhaps wondering how the retailers can afford the electricity bill. Mind you it is Penarth.

As I said I'm in the minority in the household. An example happened last night. I returned home from doing the afternoon/evening shift at work. I'm tired and hungry but all daughter wants to do is to drag me into her bedroom. I've no idea why but I start to look.

At first the only thing remarkable about the bedroom was it's tidiness (now truly that is a Christmas miracle).

Then I saw the bedspread.

Now I'm not going take a picture of the bedspread. It's after all my daughter's private space. But trust me it contained Christmas trees, Christmas decorations, Christmas gingerbread men,

I wanted to scream.

Until the next time.