Pros and Cons of Christmas

Now nobody can say I didn't at least try to look on the bright side.

Pros

• - The Christmas spirit motivates people to act with more kindness.
• - It encourages giving.
• - Nationwide celebration of Christmas means it the one time of year I'm guaranteed to be with my family, as there are no other commitments.
• - Food is a stress relief. it makes you feel good. An abundance of it it very pleasing.
• - Something to look forward to.

Cons

• - Christmas is also the most stressful time of the year, although it really shouldn't be with all of the pros above. Stress provokes undesirable characteristics such as rudeness and stupidity.
• - Giving is, in my experience, rarely done for the pleasure of giving and seeing the persons happy response. {When I was a kid, I loved just being able to put a smile on somebody's face.  I would always get asked, why are YOU giving presents? You're a kid! But I didn't want to just receive presents, (especially when I thought about them spending money on me,) I wanted to give too. But other members of the family (namely sisters) want to know that you are 100% happy with the present, become annoyed if you are not, and additionally hold grudges about bad presents or a lack of presents from previous years and use it to determine what they'll buy that year. Pointless shit, basically. [ * ] }
• - Nationwide celebration encourages national brainwashing. People get the bizarre idea that a good Christmas is an expensive Christmas. Nationwide celebration encourage unnecessary panic and heartache. It is supposed to be a joyous time of year, but the only joyous time seems to be Christmas day, excluding arguments, and it only lasts about 20 hours, depending on when you go to bed. [ ** ]
• - The excess of food, for me, always causes guilt instead of accepting that it's just a part of Christmas. {When I was young, I always ate 'til I was bursting and it such a horrible feeling. I really hated it, I'd always have to lie down, and it was so uncomfortable. Now I have a bit more sense (just a bit). Last year for the first time, I put TINY amount of everything - by the time I was finished and had had a 1/3 glass of water, I was content. Not full, just content. I was really really glad I wised up.}
• - As it looms closer, everything thinks about it and does nothing. Then they panic and talk about being disorganised and cause everybody else needless stress.

[ * ] We no longer give presents as a ritual, because too many people in the family were (is the word bitter?) no longer inclined to do it. At the time I agreed, because there was no point with animosity about, but it's kind of a shame. If we could put those issues aside, me included, it would be sweet. Maybe we made too big a deal about the presents. That's almost always it. Last year, when we didn't do presents, it was really cool. We actually had our morning back.

[ ** ] It makes me ache to think about how much Mama spent on food and drinks alone. I know we are a big family. I know she has better experience than me, I know that she's been doing Christmas for decades and I know she's rather have too much food than not enough to feed the family. It always ends up feeding us up until New Year. It just makes me =/ , especially as I've been trying to encourage them all to eat well. Again, I know it'll be over in a week. Just saying.

Men-yu desu.
Kidding. I just mean the menu. XD

I-Spied a leg o' lamb, chicken, potatoes for roasting, Yorkshire puds, Brussel Sprouts and other veggies, veg for the salad, HUGE packs of Macaroni for Mama's famous Macaroni Cheese (famous is our family, anyway =3 ), chicken skewer things & Tempura prawns to snack on. Then we got chocs, after eights & quality street to be precise, shortbread and selection box of biscuits, and other stuff I'm sure I haven't seen (my little brother is a weasel.) Drinks; snowball, mulled wine & KA, which we have pretty much every year, as well as some ginger beer, shloer, and plain juice. Desserts include apple crumble (I love), eve's pudding (Mama & the sissies love), lemon cheesecake, and surprisingly I think that's it. Would've thought a jam roly poly would been on the list but I guess not. I am also under the impression that other members will be bringing bits and bobs.



Man, this Christmas sh** is exhausting... sorry to be a downer but it's true. And of course I was already exhausted. Not much seems to be working. I must need a huge dose of iron cuz I don't think I have much left. I can barely move. If it wasn't for Mama I wouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning =o




If you're in London and on the road, (and reading this,) be careful. The wind out there is alarmingly powerful.

Take care dudes. Have a good Chrimbo, as my friend used to call it.



Star xx

An Afterthought About Christmas

It's mildly shocking the amount of effort and excitement is injected into us by The System for Christmas, simply because its the time of year when we are guaranteed to spend ridiculous amounts of money, even though it's ONE DAY out of a whole year. It really struck me when an lady who works at my workplace said, "It's over so quickly, isn't it?" And I thought... actually, she's right. The amount of build-up there is for one day is fucking stupid. I'm hearing Christmas songs from the end of October. But hey, its also the happiest time of year for many people, so I can't complain. Anyway, I'm starting to realise how futile it is to pick bones about the society I live in - nothing can be done, other than to trod on and keep commenting on what a dumb population I'm a part of.

Peace, Love.
Star xx

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A Tribute To My Mother.

My mother, as I have previously stated, is a superhero.

I would say that me and my mum are close. I feel like I can talk to her about pretty much anything, usually stuff that's worrying or upsetting me - some of that stuff I wouldn't even tell my closest friends or write on this blog. I'm very grateful for the fact that she's someone who'll always listen; I know that some of my friends don't have great relationships wth their mothers...

Obviously we have our off days, (today is verging on being one of those days... *crossface*) days where she drives me mad and I drive her insane, where she does things like call me downstairs from my bedroom to pass her the remote from across the room, or I "forget" to dust off the living room furniture (repeatedly). But we grin and bear it, cuz that's the crazy sort of crap that families do.

This Christmas, she made the same old mistake of making enough food to feed the 5000, complete with desserts and drinks, minus the bread and fish. Christmas dinner lasted us three days; it FINALLY finished on Tuesday. Which was really good, because the flavours had gotten so strong that it all tasted salty by that time anyway. The best part, food wise, was honestly her cooking... barely ate any of the Roses, Heroes, Quality street, shortbread, Viennese selection, jacobs cracker selection, organic fudge, lemon whoopie pie, strudel, apple crumble, lemon cheesecake, after eights, Sainbury's organic mince pies, mince pies with buttercream, mince pies with icing, custand-and-something pie. All I really wanted was that much-loved Mama's cooking. Unlike previous years of moaning how we never helped, this year she ordered us all out of the kitchen so we wouldn't be under her feet, leaving aside complains of having to cook the whole thing (I DID grate the cheese. =] ). She is awesome.

Just like her, I also made my yearly mistake of spooning two scoops of everything onto my plate with the belief that I could eat it all. By the time I reached the end, I was so stuffed that when I looked down at my beachball stomach, I firmly believed I'd never need to eat again. Urgh. I disgust me.

Christmas aside, it worries me slightly to think about all the stuff I don't know. I wish I could upload all of my mama's knowledge into my head, but by the time scientists develop that sort of technology, (USB Brain Storage Stick, or; Nintendo Wii Reliveyourlife, how about Nintendo Rii-liveyourlife) no doubt we'll both be long gone. One of my (current) fears - as I said before, I have many - is that I can never live up to my mama's epicness - when she is actually being epic, and not annoying and nagging. It's daunting to think about all the stuff she knows that I have yet to learn. How can I ever live up to that? How can I ever get my macaroni cheese to taste exactly like that? How could I unscrew the computers hard-drive, fumble about in there and then suddenly the computer works fine again? How can I get lost on a motorway and somehow manage to get us to the desired destination? How can I 'rough it' through situations and make everything eventually turn out fine? And so forth, so forth, so forth. I don't know what I'd do without my Mum.

Dear Mama. You are the greatest person I know. Thank you for being my guiding star.

Little Star xx

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The System at Christmas

It's christmas, but I aint merry.

Feel like christmas, look like halloween.

Shit, gets shitter, but I aint bitter.

This aint no scrooge, this is real talk.

One of my friends posted that on facebook on Sunday - now I'm feeling a lot like somebody needs to remind me of the meaning of Christmas cheer.

I read on Yahoo! news today that there's a store that exists somewhere in the world where they sell Christmas stock all year round, in other words, its Christmas every day there. Which would be great, if Christ really was born on every day of the year.

I mean, seriously? Is it just me, or has Christmas blown all out of proportion since I was a kid? True, when I was a kid, a lot of the important shit flew straight over my head, so maybe I'm just noticing it all now. But it doesn't even matter, because whether the xmas hype is recent or ancient, the way The System (a compilation of the media, the government, the police, the law, and every authority in the world that bullshits you) manipulates the population into a Spend-Spend-Spend consumerism frenzy is kind of... disgusting.

I am not Christian, neither am I atheist or any other religion, (I hold certain beliefs on religion and God but now's not the time to get into it. Anyone who knows me knows how easily little Star can get carried away) - but at the end of the day, I live in England and it's a Christian country. So it's a bit shocking when Santa is more popular than Jesus at this time of year, like the whole thing has lost its meaning. Not too shocking, mind you, the System screws us over a hell of a lot of the time - but I just feel like I'm being roped in. Which is dumb because I would still celebrate Christmas regardless, but taking into account that this year I spent more than usual plus I'm working on days I would be at home, I guess the glumness is making me wonder when everything will reach a climax, and Christmas will be so ridiculous that it'll be as non-existent as Pancake day. (Mmm, I love Pancake Day.)

A LITTLE RANT ON SANTA. 

Completely absurd is the belief that ONE MAN can travel the globe and deliver presents to every single child before they get up on Christmas Day - remembering that China is overpopulated, this is complete FARCE and to feed this story to your children is cruel. (Don't get me started on the tooth fairy.) There are many reasons why the concept of Santa is full of baloney. 

• Santa has always been depicted as white. There are many many races in the world - China probably see their Santa as Chinese, France as a Frenchman, and so on. It's too convenient.
• You mean to tell me that an overweight man could complete such a task? He's be knocked out by the time he'd done a fifth of Europe.
• Why would you want a stranger sneaking around in your house and leaving boxes like a terrorist anyway?
• When I was younger, I told my teacher that my house didn't have a chimney, therefore how would Santa get in. My teacher then proceeded to tell me this beautiful bullshit story about Santa's Magic Key that can open any door in the world. From that very moment, I knew that someone was fuckin' around with me, because if he had that key from the start, why the HELL would he bother with the chimney. He can't even bloody fit down it.

Rant done. Learn your lesson.

Even with other holidays; Hallowe'en, Easter - Halloween decorations appear from the start of September, Easter from what, late February? Somebody on Yahoo! news amusedly posted that actually, in the shop where they work, they get Easter eggs in when Christmas is finished. Man. So it really is all year round.

I sigh at consumerism fuckery.

Regardless, I do love the glee and excitement at Christmas, even if I can't fully take part in it - and I'm still looking forward to some things that happen every Christmas without fail; my mama buying too much food; watching Home Alone 2, which plays every year and is probably my favourite movie to watch at Christmas; all of us trying to sit down and do family things and then somebody ending up arguing and/or in a strop (- many years this has been me, as I have a big family and the rowdiness gets too much).

Other than that, what else is there to look forward too? Unlike previously, this year I'm 19 and for the first time ever since babyhood, not in education. So I'm WORKING. I know. I wanna fucken laugh. I'm not working New Year's Eve because I don't work Saturdays, but if Christmas had fallen on a Wednesday, I'd be working bloody Christmas Eve, Boxing Day, and probably New Years' as well! A Christian country, really? I tell ya...

My guilty pleasure: buying presents. I have been nomiated as the best present-wrapper in my family, and I do admit that I love buying and wrapping presents and making them look like a cute little parcel in cute little wrapping paper. I love the way piles of presents looked together when shoved loving in a cute lil' corner on Christmas Eve. Almost makes me not wanna open them.

... almost. I'm not an idiot.

In the Metro newspaper, (which I vow to eventually stop reading, they're filling my head with stupid rubbish that I really didn't give a toss about,) they had calculated the average that most people where likely to spend, and also calculated that people were going to spend a lot of money at Christmas even though it would most likely send them into debt in the new year. This tells me that one, most of the population is stupid, and two, this year I almost joined the ranks of most-of-the-population. The average person this year would spend £128 on presents.

It really, really pains me to say this, (I'm a very good saver and a Thrift Queen, spending money actually physically hurts me,) but buying for three brothers, two sisters, two parents, and four very close friends, with an estimated £10-£20 spend per person, I am already nearing two hundred pounds.


... yep, life sucks, but at least Princessa Jo wrote this poem for me and LuLu;

Warm hands and tall hugs,
Lovely, frothy coffee mugs,
Loud laughs and smiles smiled,
Voices heard from numbers dialled.

Stresses fade as joys are shared,
Calming words from those that care
Expressed wishes to meet again
From friends that share their love til then. 
Love you guys. xx

She's so cute. Love you too, Jo.

Okay, that's quite enough. The next post will be fiction, I swear.

With love from an alias I used whist trying to battle stress;
The ShanStar xx
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