Oh no . . . it's time to be happy.

But . . . it's too early, I want to be miserable for at least another month.
It's sad, but France seems to be catching up with America and the UK - Christmas shite in full stockage at Leclerc yesterday. I only went in to get some dog food and a packet of yeast but had to get through an assault course of chocolate and bauble nonsense to get to the sensible areas of of the shop.
I'm still in shock that people were there picking up plastic Santa Clause effigies and tins of nasty looking fois gras as if there was about to be a war and thus a shortage of these essential items.
What would Christmas be without matching gold-starred plates and glasses, and without a box of Ferrero Rocher as big as a sofa. By the way, who eats these things? They appear to be made of recycled loo roll inners and Nutella. Mark's just told me that FR own Nutella, so no surprise there. In fact it's worth reading a story in the Guardian yesterday about Nutella and palm oil (which makes up 20% of it's bulk). Apparently 235,000 tons of the stuff are consumed each year. The fact that 100 million pots are consumed annually in France alone has alerted the government to consider a 'fat tax' - the wonderfully named, 'Nutella amendment'.
FR is a marketing hype success story beyond all others, remember the adverts . . . how to sell something utterly . . . dull, very very well. Environmental packaging nightmare too. RANT over now . . . where was I? Oh yes, Christmas. I noticed our town have started putting the decorations up a little earlier each year, but so far nothing is illuminated until December itself; I hope this is going to be the case this year. Any sniff of a suspended jolly lightbulb before that and I shall be writing to the council. Huh!
Actually, I love Christmas - well, the day itself, possibly the day before and even the day after. A small isolated patch of time where the phone doesn't ring much and going out for a nice brisk walk all wrapped up seems even better than usual. Lovely food, fire, slippers, carols, and joy to all men, even that git who drives a Ferrari up our tiny road at 120 kms an hour. Apart from that it should all stay in a box in the attic until next year.
May all your Christmas's be white and not vaguely grey and drizzly.