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Am I A Christmas Hypocrite?

By Mum's the Word on December 17, 2012 in Christmas

I was listening to Radio 2 today and they had someone on talking about Christmas in terms of midnight mass and other religious things (I think he was a vicar, but I missed the beginning of the segment) and I found myself feeling cross.

“This is the BBC”, I thought, “why am I listening to religious things?”.

I thought the BBC should be a bit more moderate and found myself wondering if they had a Kohen on for Hanukkah or an Imam for Ramadan. But then it occurred to me – they were talking about CHRISTmas. You know, the religious holiday?

The problem I have is this; I don’t believe in Jesus. But I kind of do. Let me explain:

I don’t like to pin down my beliefs and give them a name. I think there are aspects of Christianity I like, such as the message that we should all be nice to each other, but I like that in the same way that I like aspects of Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Jainism, Rastafari and so on and so forth. I’m open to the concept that there may have been a man called Jesus who spread the word of love and tolerance, but do I believe that he was the Son of God? No, probably not. However, there are large aspects of each of them that I dislike (less so with Buddhism or Jainism) and I don’t celebrate the festivals of any of the other religions, so why do I celebrate Christmas?

There’s a quote from one of my favourite films that has always really resonated with me. It’s from Dogma, the Kevin Smith film about religion and may not be a heavyweight in terms of theological debate, but for me, this is profound:

Rufus: He still digs humanity, but it bothers Him to see the shit that gets carried out in His name – wars, bigotry, televangelism. But especially the factioning of all the religions. He said humanity took a good idea and, like always, built a belief structure on it.
Bethany: Having beliefs isn’t good?
Rufus: I think it’s better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier…

IDEAS. That’s how I feel. I could never in a million years say that I don’t believe in anything, because I just don’t know and it would be terribly narrow-minded of me to refute anything, but the scientist in me just won’t let me get my head around the earth being created in six days. But hey, if I’m wrong, I’m wrong! Another quote I love is this:

‎”If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change.” -The Dalai Lama

That’s just beautiful, as far as I’m concerned. That is how it should be. Don’t ban science lessons which include evolution. How about we teach our kids ALL of the ideas?

But anyway, my original point – am I a Christmas hypocrite? Well, I just don’t know. Sausage doesn’t know the story of the nativity as such and I have no plans to teach it to her just yet. I knew it by her age as I went to a C of E primary school and we had hymns, psalms and all sorts every day, but I’m just not ready to teach her the nativity yet. Maybe Husband can jump in on this one, he’s far better at teaching her things than I am! But am I a hypocrite for celebrating Christmas without telling Sausage WHY?

I’d love to know how you feel about this. Are you having a totally non-religious Christmas? Do you ever feel weird about celebrating a religious festival with no intention of attending church? Or do you do the full-on Christian thing and teach your kids about Baby Jesus? Hit me up in the comments box!

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It’s Christmas! A Meme.

By Mum's the Word on December 13, 2012 in Christmas

I’ve been tagged in a Christmas meme by My Mills Baby which involves answering all sorts of festive questions and I’m hoping it’ll put me into more of a season-appropriate mood, so here goes!:

What’s your favourite thing about Christmas?

When I was younger, I’d have said going out with friends and celebrating the festive period, but now I’m a Mum my favourite bit is the moment after Sausage wakes up. For a split second, she forgets it’s Christmas and it seems like waking up on any other day. Then the realisation kicks in and a look of excitement and happiness crosses her face and it makes every second of stress in the run up to Christmas 100% worth it.

What is your favourite make-up look for the festive season?

Probably fairly similar to my usual going-out look, smoky eyes, lots of mascara and clear gloss on the lips, but maybe with the addition of a bit more sparkle on my cheeks and eyes.

Real or Fake trees?

I know a lot of people will disagree with me here, but I like fake trees. I kind of hate the way we chop down beautiful trees just to put them in a pot in our front room for a couple of weeks, then thrown them out. I’d much rather see real trees growing outside. As a kid, my family always did fake trees too, so there’s something about the smell of a fake tree coming out of the loft that is so quintessentially Christmassy for me. Plus, sod hoovering up all those fallen needles!

Giving or receiving presents?

This is a difficult one for me to answer because I much prefer giving but it also sends me into a state of heightened anxiety so it’s not all that straight-forward! I’m both blessed and cursed with a Husband who is amazing at buying gifts, in previous years he’s remembered me mentioning that I want something around the beginning of August and actually bought it for me as a Christmas gift, which is pretty good going! On the flip-side of that, it’s a stark contrast against my frankly appalling gift-buying skills, so it just makes me worry about getting it wrong for everyone each year!

Do you open your presents in the morning or evening?

MORNING! Do people really wait until the evening to open their presents? If they do, I’ve never met them and I don’t know if I want to – surely anyone who can be that restrained on Christmas Day takes life FAR too seriously?! In fact, one side of Husband’s family is part German and they do most of the gift giving on Christmas Eve, which suits my impatience even better!

It’s A Wonderful Life

What’s your favourite Christmas film?

Oh gosh, well ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ was introduced to be by Husband about 6 years ago and we’ve watched it every year since as we both adore it, so that’s my absolute fave. In fact, Husband and I have said on many an occassion that we’d love to move to Bedford Falls! But actually, I love MOST Christmas films, I even sit and watch the tacky made-for-American-TV ones that they show on Xmas24. Anything set in New York goes down a particular treat too as it’s been a dream of mine to spend Christmas in NYC pretty much my whole life.

What is your favourite Christmas food?

Hmm, that’s a toughie, we all know how much I love my food! Roast dinner is one of my favourite meals at the best of times, so obviously the whole Christmas dinner is high on my list, and actually I’m one of those people who really likes turkey and thinks it’s a very underrated meat. A very close second, or possibly a draw is Christmas Day supper though. We usually spend Christmas Day with Husband’s family who will put out cold cuts of meat, pickles, crackers, smoked salmon, cheeses, homemade pickled onions, all sorts of delights and we all just tuck in and help ourselves round a big table. It’s lovely!

So, now I have to tag three other bloggers, but I’m cheating and tagging four!:

Jamillah at Bare Beginnings

Lauren at The Wonderful Adventures of Spud and Spike

Paul at I’m Well Confused, Me (maybe you could sub the make-up question out for a ‘What’s your favourite thing to wear on Christmas Day’?!)

And Mummy Barrow at Mummy Barrow!

Good luck and godspeed!

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Handmade Christmas – Stamped Gift Tags

By Mum's the Word on December 12, 2012 in Christmas, Review

Last year, just before Christmas, I spent an inordinate amount of time on Etsy, looking at all of the lovely rubber stamps and wishing I was crafty enough to make some handmade Christmas cards. Well, this year, I thought “That’s it, I’M DOING IT!”, so I’ve thrown caution to the wind and indulged my fantasies. Luckily for me, the lovely Blossom Stamps and The English Stamp Company were kind enough to send me some samples of their wares. Here’s what we did with them (click on one of the photos to open a gallery where you can see the photos up close. Loving the new features, by the way, WordPress!):

: To, From

: Yuletide Greetings

: Let it Snow!

: Handmade Gift Tags

: Adding a personal touch to the class Christmas cards

All we used were some blank cardboard tags, some metallic felt pens, our rubber stamps and ink pads and some glitter glue, all of which, other than the stamps, we had lying around the house (mainly raided from Sausage’s art supplies!). I had had lofty plans of using the stamps to make both my Christmas cards and wrapping paper, but I’m not sure if time will permit this year as I’ve had Sausage home from school for four days now, having been very poorly. However, I think the tags will make a really nice handmade adornment to our wrapped gifts and I’m sure I’ll find ways to use them on other things in the next couple of weeks.

If I were more organised, I’d have like to have made handmade gifts too, but it’s just not worked out that way. Here’s to next year…!

(If I do make anything else with my lovely stamps, I’ll be sure to post about it and let you know)

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What to Buy The Kid Who Has Everything! – Bean Bag Bazaar Review

By Mum's the Word on December 5, 2012 in Christmas, Parenting, Review

This year, Christmas present buying hasn’t been quite so simple. Sausage is getting older now and is at a bit of an in-betweeny phase – lots of stuff seems either too young or too old for her and she has quite a lot of everything already. Plus, don’t you find that you spend a few months caching ideas of what to get your kids for Christmas, only to be asked by lots of relatives what they’d like and you end up giving all of your ideas away?!

One thing that has saved us a bit, in terms of ideas, is that we’re giving Sausage’s bedroom a bit of a makeover to bring it up to her new ‘big-girl-who-goes-to-school-now’ standards so we’ve been thinking of things that we can get her to make it into her very own girl-cave! For one of her big presents, we’ll be getting her her first TV so that she can watch her DVDs in her room and have her Wii console in there too. We had wanted to get her a small armchair to go in there too but all of the ones we liked were astronomically priced, so we looked at beanbags instead and found Bean Bag Bazaar.

Bean Bag Bazaar doesn’t just cater for kids, they sell bean bags for adults too for both indoor and outdoor use, bean bags which are ideal for gaming and some beautiful kids ones to boot. They also have a range of Jacqueline Wilson bean bags which are brightly coloured and perfect for a reading corner or a spot of TV watching, and we’ve been lucky enough to be sent one to review.

The one we chose was the Jacqueline Wilson™ Kids Classic Bean Bag – Bookshelf (£49.99 pictured above) and although we’ve put it away for Sausage to have at Christmas, Husband and I have given it a through once-over and the quality is really very high. The material that the bag is made of is not only bright and beautiful but feels incredibly hard-wearing too and I can imagine it taking a real battering without any problems! The blurb on the site says:

“This Jacqueline Wilson™ style bean bag is officially designed by BeanBagBazaar. It has a pretty bookshelf print and is the perfect accompaniment to the latest Jacqueline Wilson™ book. It is made from strong and sturdy water-resistant fabric and features double zips, to keep all beans secure inside the beanbag.”

It’s suitable for ages 3-10 and the he best part about the beanbag is that it can be used indoors and outdoors, which means it will be perfect for Sausage to sit on in the garden and read her books or do some drawing when the weather starts to improve. We can even imagine taking it camping or to the beach in the summer as a handy seat too!

If you’ve got a kid who’s hard to buy for, I can highly recommend any of the Jacqueline Wilson range and judging by the quality of this beanbag, the rest of the ones on the site would be a great buy too! Oh and all kids beanbags are buy one get one half price at the moment. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up from The Crammonds!

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Some Ideas for (shhhh!) Christmas…

By Mum's the Word on November 15, 2012 in Christmas, Parenting, Review

Okay, okay, I’m sorry to start talking about Chrimbo so early, but I hate to tell you this – it’s not actually that far away now! We’ve started our Christmas shopping already, which is massively early for us, but I know people who have not only finished their shopping but actually got it all wrapped already!

We’ve been sent a few things to review recently, all of which would make fab pressies for the kiddos, especially ones of Sausage’s age, so I thought I’d do a round-up of them all there, just in case you were looking for some ideas for the 4-year-old girl in your life:

Jungle Junction Playsets

A while ago, we reviewed the Jungle Junction Hippo Bus for UKMums.tv and because we loved it so much, as soon as we were asked to review some more Jungle Junction set, we jumped at the chance! We were sent the Taxicrab Boat Play Set and the Race Launcher, both of which we absolutely loved. Both items are really well-built and as with the other Jungle Junction sets, they’re bright, durable, engaging and fun. The Race Launcher is especially good if you have more than one child and we can imagine a whole lot of fun being had on Christmas Day with character races going on!

Moo & Baa

Haba kits are great for so many things, including hand-eye co-ordination, imagination and learning safety, and the Moo and Baa kit is no exception. The farmyard pieces are simply stunning with bright colours and gorgeous illustrations and they have the feel of a really traditional, hard-wearing set about them. Sausage loves being allowed to use the hammer and tacks as it makes her feel really grown up and she also likes to use it to make story scenes.

Minilotta Nici Doll

This doll is intended for use in the bath and comes with a range of accessories all of which can go in the bath too. I must admit, this particular toy has really invigorated Sausage’s interest in bath-time again and the mitt that goes with it has encouraged her to take more of a hand in bath-time and become more independent, all of which can only be good things. Giving a little girl a plush dolly which can be used in the bath is, quite frankly genius, and giving them one that has changeable outfits is off the scale of brilliant, so I can HIGHLY recommend this to little girls of pretty much any age.

Poppy Cat

We received the Poppy Cat Talking Soft Toy and the set of mini figures, both of which Sausage loves. The mini figures are popular as she loves to take a little toy along with her when we go out in the car and these are so perfectly pocket-sized that she tends to choose one of these every time. At the end of her bed, Sausage has a selection of cuddly toys that she calls her ‘Herd’ and only the best toys get a place in her Herd. The plush talking Poppy Cat was inaugurated into the role of Herd Member almost immediately, which should give you a clue as to how great this toy is!

If your little girl is yearning for anything in particular, I’d love to hear about it, all suggestions for Christmas are gratefully received!

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The Humanistic Approach? – An Alternative Christmas Post

By Mum's the Word on December 24, 2011 in Christmas, Personal

If you’ve read this blog or know me in real life, you’ll know that I’m a worrier and an innate over-thinker. The slightest thing can set off a tangent in my brain and I’ll be going over it for days. Hey, I’m sitting here awake while the rest of the family sleeps because my brain just won’t switch off.

This year, we lost my step mum to cancer. I’ve blogged about my anger, sadness, grief etc, but just lately I’ve had another prevailing emotion: fear. You see, Lorraine had a Humanist minister speak at her service and while it was a very nice funeral (I fucking hate saying that…what the hell is a ‘nice’ funeral? Sadly, my vocabulary fails me on this one as I don’t know how else to describe it) it’s left me feeling adrift.

I don’t know if you’re aware, so please forgive my explanation if you are, but Humanism works on the principal that we should focus on human action rather than that of a deity and has no mention of an afterlife. We all just cease to be.

I suppose until this point, I’ve never been able to come up with an explanation for my own spirituality. The majority of my brain is science-driven, believing in evolution, the big bang, impact events and since becoming a huge Fringe fan, I even like to ponder the whole multiverse theory with Husband every now and again. But mixed in with all of this is still a belief in the afterlife and something a big bigger and badder than us, floating around in the ever after.

Maybe it’s a comfort thing, I’ve told you all before that I’m terrified of my own mortality, I always have been, I remember being scared of it as a small child as I’d have to be away from my Mum and Nan, which was the worst thing in the world to me back then. All I know is, I want to believe in Heaven. I want to believe that my Nan is up there in her pinny, having a good old chat with Lorraine and looking after her. That I’ll get to see all of the people I miss. A minute logical part of my mind tells me that this is just the human way of dealing with grief, but I can ignore that.

I suppose it’s Christmas that’s made me think of all of this, I’ve always felt like a hypocrite for celebrating when I don’t go to church, but as I’ve got older and started to formulate some firm ideas of my faith, I think it’s okay for me to celebrate because a) I think if there is a God, he’s in everything, not just in very expensive, man-made buildings and b) even if I don’t believe that Jesus was the son of God, I still think he was a lovely man who tried to teach people to be nice to each other, and I can still celebrate his birth.

I suspect I’ve got to the rambling stage now, this is probably one of those posts where I just needed to get everything out of my brain and let it sit in the ‘Drafts’ section forevermore. But I’m going to publish it, mainly in the vain hope that someone else can organise my thoughts for me. All I know is this: I miss Lorraine terribly and I hate the thought that we won’t get to see her at Christmas. I am, and will continue to be, gutted.

My thoughts are with anyone who lost someone this year and I hope you’re able to have as fantastic a Christmas as the ones we’ve lost would want us to have.

Oh, and Happy Birthday Jesus. You had some nice ideas.

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Slow Cooker Challenge – A Recipe Linky

By Mum's the Word on December 23, 2011 in Christmas, Cooking and Recipes

Being a grown-up at Christmas is tough. People ask you what you want and you have to trawl through your tinsel-addled brain to think of something that’s not too expensive or that you haven’t already gone out and bought for yourself. This year, my aunt must have had her genius hat on, because she bought Husband and I a slow cooker, which is something I’ve wanted for yonks but just haven’t got around to buying yet.

: Ooh, ahh, shiny slow-cookery goodness. (That reminds me, I must clean my hob…)

But, herein lies the rub; I have no frigging idea of what to cook in a slow cooker. I’ll probably try my Lamb Stew in it at some point, but I have it on good authority that there’s whole world of slow-cooked goodness that can be executed in one of these babies and I want to broaden our culinary horizons. Sure, I can look recipes up on the ‘net, but I want tried-and-tested, home cooked concoctions so I thought I’d turn to my readers.

I’ve hooked this post up with a little linky, so if you want to blog a recipe and link up, that would be super awesome, or if you don’t blog you can leave a comment below. There’s no prize, no weekly entry, just a one-off, good ol’ fashioned recipe swap to help me and my family take full advantage of our new kitchen gadget. I’ll be blogging my own attempts at your recipes and giving lots of link-love, so get involved and I’ll make sure you get all the credit! It’s a nice, chilled out, food related chance to blog – who doesn’t love that at Christmas?

I hope everyone is prepared, relaxed and looking forward to a great Christmas. Lots of love to you all from me, Husband, Sausage, Chuck and Happy.

LINK UP BELOW – GO ON, CLICK ON THE FROG!

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A Christmas Extravaganza – Two Competitions!

By Mum's the Word on December 10, 2011 in Christmas, Competitions, Review

Every so often, I get asked to review something or do a giveaway on my blog and just recently I was offered the chance to give away a whole bundle of things, which should make Christmas a whole lot easier for one lucky Mum’s the Word reader.

Courtesy of UKMums.tv, I’ve been given 12, yes TWELVE toys to give away to one reader and the haul of goodies is as follows:

1. A Zhu Zhu Pet – These little critters are super popular at the moment and make a brilliant stocking filler for a little Zhu Zhu fan!

2. Mould and Paint Christmas – Perfect for your budding crafters, this set comes with everything you need to make and paint your own Christmas decorations.

3. Klutzy the Crab from Disney’s Club Penguin

A six-inch plush of Klutzy, from Disney’s ever-popular Club Penguin.

4. Childrens World Map Puzzleball

This one’s brilliant, not only is it a 3D puzzle, at the end of it, you end up with a fully functional rotating globe, so it’s fun, educational and stimulating all at once. (I quite want one of these for myself…!)

5. Rastamouse Talking Plush

If you’ve read this, you’ll know that we reviewed one of these a month or so ago, and Sausage loves hers! Full of songs and sayings from the show, this plush is a brilliant addition to the toy box.

6. Sylvanian Families Squirrel Family

We’ve bought Sausage a whole bunch of Sylvanian Families stuff this year because we just love it all, but the Squirrel Family is especially cute, even by Sylvanian standards!

7. Mission Earth

Not only is this family board game a great way to teach your kids how to be eco-friendly, it’s all made from recycled cardboard, contains no plastic and was invented by a group of school girls for the Young Enterprise Scheme.

8. Wild Science Face Mask Laboratory

I absolutely love this one, it’s essentially a good ol’ fashioned chemistry set, but it’s aimed at young girls and the end result of your experiments is that you’ve made some lush face masks. A brilliant way to get girls into science.

9. A Selection of Animals

We discovered Schleich toys a while back as Sausage is mad about animals I wanted her to have something like the ELC animals that my little sister used to collect. Brilliant quality and beautiful toys for girls or boys.

10. Fireman Sam Ambulance

Fireman Sam is one of the programmes that I remember from when I was a kid, it started in 1987 and it’s still going strong! This ambulance comes with a Nurse Flood figure and first aid box.

11. A 50th Anniversary Etch-a-Sketch

Speaking of things that’ve been around for a while, Etch-a-Sketch is celebrating its golden anniversary with a, well, GOLDEN Etch-a-Sketch! Create something amazing with this classic toy.

12. Morbs Ultimate Triple Pack

According to Amazon, these are “sensational ‘Ping Pong’ looking balls that instantly MORPH into fun looking fantasy characters, simply throw, roll, blast, bounce your ball… as they land they transform from small little balls into big-headed small bodied warriors and monsters”. Apparently!

So, here’s the awesome part…I have another thing to give away too!

About a month ago, I was sent one of these sensational and truly pretty Cake Pop Makers, which bakes six cake balls in four minutes. The cakes come out perfectly spherical and perfectly moist, ready for you to decorate as you wish. Sausage and I made about ten batches of these for her nursery’s Christmas fair and we decorated them with white chocolate and edible glitter, to make magical snowball cakes!

My next plan is to make chocolate balls, covered in milk chocolate and topped with a drizzle of white chocolate and fondant holly made with this to make perfect bite-sized Christmas pudding pops!

All in all, the toy bundle is worth almost £200 and the Cake Pop Maker is worth £20, so you could win yourself a seriously good haul to make the festive season that much easier.

If you want to enter, leave me a comment below telling me whether you want to win the toys, the cake pop maker or both, along with a way to contact you (email address, Twitter ID etc.).

Also, if you’d like to pop over to the Mum’s the Word Facebook page and give me a like, follow me on Twitter or subscribe by email (in the right sidebar of this page—–>), each of these will earn you a super-dooper-extra-free entry into the competition, just let me know in the comment you leave which you’ve done, if any.

Good luck, the winner or winners will be drawn next Saturday 17th December 2011 at 8pm so that I have time to post the goodies out before Christmas.

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Don’t Forget Your Posting Dates!

By Mum's the Word on November 14, 2011 in Christmas, Sponsored Posts

You all know what it’s like; you spend ages planning out your Christmas gift list, you buy everything, get it wrapped – only to realise that you’re a day too late to post out Great Auntie Mabel’s lavender soap and Cousin Greg’s naked lady cooking apron. Inevitably, they sit in a cupboard until next year when you go out and buy exactly the same items for them, forgetting you never sent last years ones and eventually you realise that you’re 70 years old and no longer have room for a television because your whole house is filled up with ageing, wrapped Christmas presents that you never sent.

Powerful imagery, huh?

Okay, so that might be a little bit over the top but having the Christmas posting dates in mind is always a good thing and ParcelForce, diligent as ever, want to remind us of their posting dates.

Above are the dates for the UK, but if you want to check the dates for any other part of the world, you can do that HERE and get to look at some pretty baubles too.

All I’m saying is, why go to the effort of picking out the perfect pepper mill for your Kiwi second cousin, only to find out that you missed the posting deadline (4th December for the Value option to New Zealand, just in case you were wondering…). Better still, write the dates on your calender. Go on, go and do it. GO!

(Oh and if anyone wants to buy ME a pre-Christmas present, I’ve got my eye on THESE rubber stamps!)

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Christmas.

By Mum's the Word on August 8, 2011 in Christmas, Opinion

I’m fairly certain that the title of this post will put people off of reading, and maybe even make people groan and roll their eyes skywards. But that’s kind of the point of this post. I’d been formulating it for a while when I had an email from one of the other BDT writers, discussing article planning. I happened to mention that we’ll be planning our Christmas articles within the next couple of months, only to be told that I’d ruined her day! (I think she meant it in a tongue in cheek way. At least I hope she did…). But I’ve noticed a running trend that between the months of February and September, Christmas takes on a Voldemort-like quality in a “holiday that shall not be named” kind of way.

It’s not just the public who behave in this way, the media are involved too. Any film, TV show, song or publication that even hints at the festive season is hidden away until later in the year. With the exception of maybe Dave and their repeated showings of Only Fools and Horses, including the Christmas specials, all Yule related mentions are embargoed. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I want to turn on Radio 2 in August and hear Cliff crooning some fucking abomination of ten Hail Marys sung to the tune of the “Holidays Are Coming” tune from the Coca Cola advert, but I do think I’m onto something here.

Think of it this way; the reason we don’t like hearing about Christmas at this time of year is because as soon as it all begins, the PRESSURE starts. The pressure to spend money, wrap presents, bake cookies, invite 20 people round for dinner, and watch a series of posh TV presenters who have 12 nannies and a personal chef tell us how we, the lowly proles, should be making everything from scratch this Christmas. But….

If we didn’t ignore Christmas all year round, heard and saw little scraps of it here and there, maybe we wouldn’t get to 1st of November and start panicking about how much we had to do, or how much we had to buy. Every bloody year, I promise myself that I’ll start buying gifts earlier. Every bloody year, I leave it until December, then start impulse buying items which are probably a load of shit and broken by January. All I’m saying is, when a pressure cooker is about to explode, you loosen the valve and the pressure eases. Maybe if we were to lift the embargo on Christmas (and that doesn’t mean putting fucking mince pies on the shelves in July, Tesco) then we might all feel a little bit better about it when it does come around.

What do you think, are you a planner or a Christmas ostrich, hiding your head in the sand until Santa is positively kicking you up the arse? Would you mind a little bit of ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ in April? I bet there’s at least one smug so-and-so reading this who’s already got half of their Christmas shopping and has a Delia fruit cake in the pantry, being fed with brandy once a month! Leave a comment and let me know.