Goodwill and Binge-Drinking

Casting aside the misery-tinged themes of my last couple of posts, I am now gleefully awaiting Christmas. Gleeful because both my lovely sisters are going to be coming home in a few days in order that the clothes/make-up/jewellery bickering can commence and the proper order of things can therefore be restored.

I finished off my shopping today in a health food store next to Bond Street tube station, feeling that I needed something to boost me after a tough few hours of elbowing fellow shoppers in the face and jumping queues, all with the appropriate amounts of Christmas spirit. I had come straight from a lovely and very relaxed morning at my friend Chris's new flat in Brixton where I had stayed the night before. After some coffee, a pain au chocolat and some soothing morning chat I felt that I was ready to hit the streets of Central London in search of those last, all-important gifts for my loved ones. What I somehow failed to acknowledge, though, was the fact that Central London is Hell. It doesn't matter how many reassuring cups of coffee you prepare yourself with, the fact will remain that stepping off a bus on Oxford Street on the Friday afternoon before Christmas will make you want to die at once. Nevertheless, step off the bus I did, and marched furiously around for a couple of hours buying things and swearing heartily at anyone who got the slightest bit in my way (which was everyone) until I collapsed onto the train to come home.

Things that didn't help included:

• The fact that it was fucking freezing cold
• The fact that I had a knawing hangover causing my feet to feel all funny and sometimes refuse to walk in a straight line
• The fact that I was convinced that all the presents I was buying were a) crap, and b) well out of my budget
• The fact that my shoes were high and uncomfortable, selected for swanning places and drinking gin and tonic like I had been doing the night before, not for pounding the ice-like pavements of Stupid Central London

So now I am back in the luxury of home, waiting for Santa to come to town and slip sables under the tree for me. I am talking on Instant Messenger to my friend the burleseque superstar Ms Lily Dumont to get some advice about getting a performance costume made. I want it green and I want a corset built in. Fancy. And maybe even a bit dirty, but of course in a classy way. Sleek. Sharp. Showy. With fabulous shoes.

This weekend I plan to wrap my Christmas presents in a sloppy manner, decide on outfits for all the social occasions I have planned for the next few weeks and prepare myself for Christmas. I will Help Around The House (I already put my immense culinary skills to the test and rolled some pastry) and mess around on my computer (which has just come back from being fixed). I might even go out on a date with someone, but to be honest I don't know if I can be bothered. It seems a lot of hassle and would no doubt ruin my whole outfit schedule.

On Christmas Eve I will go out to the same pub my friends and I have been to every Christmas Eve for the last nine years. We will get elegantly drunk. Drunk enough to have lots of fun, but not so drunk that we wake up on Christmas morning face down in a delicious pile of our own vomit. A situation in which my little sister definitely did not find herself a couple of years ago. Certainly not.

All in all I am trying to cheer myself up with the season of goodwill and the fact that my Dad just bought a massive bottle of Bailey's from Waitrose.

Let's all be jolly, shall we? Merry Christmas.