Festive spirits

OK. I'll let you into a little secret...

I really hate Christmas.

OK, OK, that's a bit of a lie. I love the cheesiness and the naffness of fake trees (real trees make me feel itchy), and I'm really quite fond of the twinkly lights. Oooh, and I adore the gluttony and alcoholic excess (although the hangovers are very unpopular). That's not the part of Christmas I hate, true enough.

No. The part I hate is the day itself, and the all-consuming pressure to BE HAPPY ALL THE TIME.

It's just not fair. It's relentless... It's a constant barrage of Woman's Own style magazines with articles on "How to enjoy Christmas" (written by a gaggle of psychoanalysts, life-coaches and do-gooders) or M&S telling us how to get "Festive Fun at Christmas". Yes, well, I'm sure I'd have a lot of festive fun if I had those lovely lads from Take That turn up on my doorstep...

Oh, and that's the other thing - the adverts. Shameful... Absolutely shameful. There's that lovely M&S girl running around Twiggy's house in her undie-keks (Clearly the credit crunch has hit her hard. She's too poor to buy any clothes. M&S are obviously not generous employers. Must avoid nasty stingy M&S.) looking bloody gorgeous, and not one of Take That looks remotely interested... Poor lass. Maybe they're asexual (God forbid)?... Maybe they're doing a Cliff Richard (please God... Nooooo)?

Of course, the best thing about the ads is analysing the socio-economic ranges they cater to. Let's face it - the ones who will only make do with M&S are aspiring to Kate Middleton class (posh enough for a big house and lots of horses, NOT posh enough to marry a future king), because anyone posher than that probably already has Twiggy on speed dial and has their own catering department to organise their parties, anyway.

The Tesco fans are on the B-list celeb scale. As in - they'd be quite happy to date an ugly premiership footballer, as long as he shows 'promise' (i.e. some marketing savvy, and enough brains to let the missus do the financial stuff) - but not quite able to avoid the smell of their tacky own-name perfume.

Ahhh - and the Iceland fans... Yes. They're currently in rehab. Or have just finished a stint there. Or are hoping for a comeback. Or somehow, in some improbable way, consider Kerry Katona to be a great role-model, and one day hope that they too can waste all their hard-earned money from OK-Magazine exclusives on pies and cocaine.

The awful truth is, of course, (apart from the fact I'm a bit of an M&S AND Tescos fan - but never be seen DEAD in Iceland... ) that I'm a natural scrooge. As someone who is prone to a lot of bah-humbugs, quite frankly, it means that life's no fun if I can't moan. And moaning is, as we all know, well and truly verboten on Christmas day. Bah Humbug.