Posts Tagged ‘Xmas’

If you’ve caught the news last night you will have seen the painfully comical “winter wonderland” on show in Dorset. Well, I’ve just read that an angry dad has given Santa exactly what a child should never see – a punch in the face. The dad wanted to sit his child on Santa’s lap, and when he refused he socked him. Brilliant.

The place is horrendous, I laughed at the billboard nativity scene, and the “Hollywood special effects”, Santa’s market stall which was just a big tent, a broken ice-skating rink and huskies tied up in a muddy field – however, if I was one of the unlucky parents who’d spent £25 to get in, I’d have probably punched Santa too.

But that’s not the worst thing to happen. No No. ‘Santa’ was caught outside by a child smoking and had to be comforted. Keep the dream alive guys right. The staff have now been attack as much as six times, which is not acceptable to be honest, but the manager should be made to come out and explain himself. This is probably how his speech would sound:

“So yeah, sorry. I’m just an idiot who wants to con people in to spending money through my falsely advertised website to come and see some shacks, angry Santa’s and destroy your child’s joy about Christmas. I’m an idiot, and if you see me in the street please feel free to give me a swift kick to the knackers.”

Sadly all Henry Mears has said is: “One of our elves was slapped and had a pram pushed into her leg which has left a horrible bruise.”

Compelling.

In other news, you may remember that yesterday I said I got booted at football and have a sore ankle? We’ll by the time I got home from work my foot was shaped like a football, and I could barely walk. Good times.

After a call to NHS 24, they recommended I get an X-ray, so cue 2 and a half hours in accident and emergency, where they told me that although its not broken, it could be fractured, but because the swelling is so bad they can tell yet. Awesome. Fantastic. Great.

I was told off the doctor that I should have crutches, get bandaged up and take my weight off it for a few days, cool I thought, I’ve never had crutches. Alas it was not to be, as I found out last night that nurses can overrule a doctor’s decision, and send you home with a leaflet. Super.

So I stumbled home with nothing but a bad mood and a sore foot. I’ve to keep an eye on it for a few days, and expect it to swell more – which it has, but I’ve to suck it up and walk on it as much as possible. Fan-dabbie-dozie…

A weekend of brutal Xmas shopping, but that’s me done! I don’t think I have ever been completely finished shopping before the 1st of December In my life, and I must admit to feeling rather smug as everyone else I’ve spoke to hasn’t even started theirs yet.

I do enjoy Xmas, I like getting presents, seeing my family and eating an amount of food that would make Kerry Catona struggle. I still get excited about putting up the Xmas tree – which I’ll be doing tonight – and I enjoy putting all of the presents I’ve got underneath it.

I can’t wait to go home, as I live a few hundred miles away from my folks, its always a great occasion going back, and they really pull out all the stops. I know that steak pie is on the menu, and it’s always amazing. The great thing about this steak pie is that it’s made with sausage and onion, and the pastry is a massive chunk of goodness – amazing.

One of the best things about Xmas is the build up to the day itself. we all know how fast the day itself goes, so if you can figure out how to enjoy the build up it makes the whole thing last longer. I’ve achieved this by getting my presents early, and now can relax, get in touch with friends back home, and plan my new year. I’ve got ten days off, and I’m going to make the best of it!

New year itself is always a strange one. The last few years have been a combination of going to a outdoor thing, fireworks display or something like that, and a night out or house party, this year I don’t have a clue what I’m doing, I may well head to Edinburgh for the street party, however its freezing and has been rained off a few times now. The fact is it’s a lot of money to spend for it to be cancelled.

I was in the Trafford Centre yesterday which was a nightmare, it was insanely busy, and I had people bashing me out the way for most of the day. I got to pick my present though, and I had a KFC – the devils food yes, but I do like it every so often. I was watching some horrendously dressed people walking around, and me and the missus decided to have a basic, yet entirely effective code system for spotting horrible things: FD 1 O’clock, etc (Fashion Disaster) this helped the day go faster, and here are some of the things we saw that should NEVER be seen again;

• Mature ladies wearing skin-tight leather trousers – never a good look unless you are on a motorbike.
• Those luminous pink tights – why?
• Full length white fur coat, accompanied by leopard print thigh high boots on a woman that was old enough to be my gran/know better.

Good luck with your shopping…

So another day, another company comes crashing to a halt. This time it’s a shop I was in loads as a kid demanding sweets and juice, and generally being a pain in the backside to my parents. My mum even worked in Woolworths when she was younger, and I remember getting my first ‘things’ there, such as my first pair of shoes (Niks), my first computer game (double dragon for the Atari) and my first music CD (Areosmiths greatest hits volume 1).

It’s quite a shame when you see places you used to go to as a kid disappear. I remember loads of shops that are no longer here, and I’m oddly sad about the fact Woolies is gone. Strange yes, I mean, I never worked there, but I have fond memories of running up an down the aisles causing chaos for staff and generally acting like a bull in a China shop.

It’s different these days as the majority of kids buy stuff online, and there is no connection with the shop to build up. They could probably tell you where to find exact products in a website, but have lost the skills (?) of finding stuff on shelves. Like the classic dash to a shelf when you realise you’ve forgot to pick up something and the queue at the till is massive.

It’s a worrying time for a lot of people, I’m struggling to make ends meet, and that’s with a full time job and no kids to worry about, so how people with large families are coping is beyond me…well, actually not completely beyond me…

If you’ve seen the news recently it’s all doom and gloom, end the world as we know it type stories, but if you’ve been in the town centre recently you won’t notice the difference. People are happily throwing money at cashiers, but not real money, in fact not it’s not even their own money…it’s the banks money. Its sales going on credit cards, and overdraughts, but what these people are forgetting is that although the recession is tough at the moment, if anything were to happen to just one of the main banks in the coming months, we’d all be up sh#t creek without a paddle.

And it’ll get worse, just look at every financial analyst. They all look like they are in pain, and that’s because they have lost a ton of money on various shares on multiple companies going down the drain. People need to wise up that its going to get harder, and that its going to stay difficult for at least a year. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling must be hoping that the conservatives win the next election, so that they can shoulder the massive responsibility of saving a country in crisis.

Anyway, the fact is Woolworths is gone, and we have no money. Merry Xmas.

I went Xmas shopping this weekend, and contrary to all my expectations, I actually bought 90 percent of my presents for relatives and everyone else. I’m not a fan of shopping; in fact I despise it with a passion.

At Xmas time everyone seems to go a bit ga ga over gifts for people they’ve probably not seen since last Xmas. You watch as people franticly claw at merchandise in a shop, barge their way past old grannies, as the parents of toddlers wait frustratedly at the long queue at Santa’s Grotto, because you still have 50 presents to buy for all your aunties and cousins you barely know. Nightmare.

Another particular favourite thing of mine to see is the groups of blokes huddled outside various changing rooms like a group of freezing penguins. Shoulders are arched in sheer discomfort, either from the weight of the bags, the fact they could be spotted by a mate or that they are standing awkwardly in a lingerie section. That’s a point…why do they always have those sections at the changing room doors? It’s like Father Ted all over again – if you enjoy UK comedy, you’ll understand.

Anyway, I got pretty much all of my gifts sorted out, and being a naturally cheap skate by nature, I sorted everyone out for under a tenner, sweet. What go me worried though was that people in the shops were spending their money like there was no tomorrow. The first time I saw people at a till in front of me the totals were in the hundreds of pounds, but my natural reaction was to assume they were WAGS or rich through ‘daddys money’, but this happened in numerous shops, with people of, er… different social status?

I was scraping the barrel for money as my bills are high, my rent is high, my fuel and food costs are high, yet people all around me were practically throwing money at the sales assistants. I thought we were in a recession? I thought the UK was the worst hit since 1991. If that’s the case, then why is everyone spending so much? And more to the point, where is the money coming from?

If I went to a bank and asked for a credit card, would they give me one? I thought banks were supposed to be stopping people from spending money they don’t have, or have people just hid money under the mattress? Its people spending this money they don’t actually own that has brought our country’s financial institutions to its knees.

So what’s the answer? Well I don’t know, I’m not a banker, but I don’t think they know either. Everyone moans about the credit crunch, but be honest, have you REALLY noticed that much of a difference, or are we bowing to a BBC buzzword. My bills have always been high and I don’t think I’m any better off or worse off since the start of the “crunch”, are you?