Getting into the Christmas Spirit(s)…

Yes that’s right, Christmas has come around again and you know what that means - pass the paracetamol please!! In fact I have been fortunate enough to avoid a hangover for quite some time (I know, remarkable!) but I don’t want to get ahead of myself just yet - the big days are still to come! But the amount of alcohol-fuelled events do always astound me at this time of year. From the delicately festive and well-behaved mulled wine & mince pie tennis party (a casual affair that lasts a couple of hours, falling immediately after a morning of playing tennis and thus usually resulting in a drunken factor of 0), to the raucous, riotous and richly saturated Butcher Xmas party. This particular shindig always kicks off the festive season for the family, and apparently for lots of other people too, as we work our way through nearly 30 bottles of champagne! Hence the drunkenness factor has to fall somewhere closer to an 8 I’m sure. What is perhaps most surprising at all is the date of all these spirited events. For the rest of the year our sociable drinking is usually limited to a weekend, or a Friday night at a push, but somehow once the month of December hits, getting sozzled on a Tuesday is apparently a perfectly acceptable activity! Take my neighbour, Marta, her Christmas drinks gathering fell on a Wednesday evening yet that didn’t stop several glasses of Prosecco on an empty stomach topped off with some red wine. And that was just Percy (the naughty devil!)

But though I may bemoan my festively fuzzy state, I can’t say I try very hard to avoid it, since my birthday is fast approaching and no doubt I’ll have a tipple or two then, and almost immediately after that it’s Christmas Eve, which is virtually Christmas day, right? In fact far from avoiding the alcohol where possible I’ve found myself accidentally adding it to all my recipes, so not even while chewing can I escape it! For instance my recent bake of ‘mulled wine brownies’ (which if I might say so myself were utterly delicious) contained a hefty glug of red wine. Even the writing of this blog post was prompted by the imminent approach of a Christmas catch up with Barney and Bowie (they do have first names, but those seem lost to the mists of time…). And I have specifically arranged being dropped off and picked up to further allow for more food and drink consumption tinged with more than a little of the ‘Christmas spirit’. For this reason I have taken to viewing the month of December as sort of an extended holiday, where Mondays feel like Saturdays and there’s a constant sense of celebration - and how else do we Brits celebrate than with a toast? (and I’m not talking the wheaten variety - my Christmas diet is far more gluten friendly!). Hence my Christmas message is for all is to join me in eating, drinking and generally being merry!

So: Gingle Bells, I’m Dreaming of a White Pinot, Let it Sloe, Wine not?

Once you’ve mulled* these over - see what I did there?! - I’ll see if you think they’re the best damn Christmas Spirit puns you’ll ever find (although I must confess I only want your feedback hypothetically, all replies shall actually be ignored, such is my belief in my own hilarity. I can’t risk my ego being undermined, especially not before Christmas!!).

Merry Christmas one and all,

“You better drink up, you better say cheers, you better not leave a drop for those deers -Christmas Spirit’s coming to town!”