Christmas is nuts

Dec 18 2010 The Journal

WHAT is it about Christmas and nuts? I’ve spent my life being protected from peanuts as if they held the key to my demise (for the record, no one has any reason to think that they disagree with me).

But as soon as advent calendar time comes around, my mum can’t seem to buy enough of them.

And it’s not just peanuts. There are also piles of cashews (bless me), a bag of brazils and a copious amount of dried fruit and nuts mash ups.

(Just to be clear, nuts and dried fruit are not part of the staple weekly shop as a rule at Telfer Towers.)

I mean didn’t she get a clue when she had to throw away last year’s storing of squirrel food that had “gone bad”, to make way for the new gathering?

What’s more, I’ve already had a wager with Monkey that she’ll repeat the exact same ritual next year. He reckons she’ll learn her lesson. I know so much better.

This is just one of the many crazy things that I’ve come to realise comes as standard at this time of year.

Thus, I thought it was a good time (and my last chance as there’s no column on next week – apologies, Fred fans) to offer a three-year-old’s take on the whole Christmas hoopla malarkey.

And it basically boils down to this. Grown ups make it far too complicated for their own good.

I can sense that the parental members of Telfer Towers have already upped the ante when it comes to stress levels... should the season of goodwill really have this effect?

Who cares if there are a few lights off on the tree? Or whether there are going to be enough luxury Christmas puds to go around at the cookie shop (others call it M&S I believe)... and is it really a big issue if I help mum get to the end of her advent calendar ahead of schedule?

Take the all-important Christmas dinner as a prime example of the craziness. What is with all that?

Not only does it involve the consumption of a long list of foods that don’t get touched with a barge pole for 51 weeks of the year (if mince pies are so great, why don’t we have them at least every other day?), it’s also the perfect example of terrible scheduling.

If it were up to me, there’d be nothing more than a quick beans-on-toastesque snack, which could be inhaled inside five minutes.

It’s not that I’ve got anything against a big plate of Sunday lunch-style nosh as a rule... but provided I retain my goody two shoes status, I’m thinking Santa is going to leave a whole lot of fun behind in my stocking.

So why would I want to break off from some primetime playtime with my new friends and playthings to spend at least three times longer than I ever have spent before, sitting at the dinner table.

Let’s be honest, I’m going to spend most of my time turning my little button nose up at the likes of sprouts; leeks in white sauce; parsnips (roasted in honey or otherwise); and the myriad of hot fruit-based desserts that get offered around.

I may take a bite of the Christmas choccie log, but only to be sociable.

And the promise of a paper hat is not going to change my mind.

Don’t get me wrong. I absolutely love Christmas.

I love the decorations, the flashy lights, the songs that come with it and the fact that we get to spend lots of lovely time with all my favourite people.

I just think there should be a lot more relaxing involved and a lot less recoiling in horror at the realisation that the table may be one cracker short.