Do they know it's Christmas?

Not in this house.

Strange as it seems, I don't celebrate Christmas. To be honest I can't see what the fuss over one day is all about. But never mind. Jesus was born and saved us all. The end. But what you all do is eat too much, drink too much and offend my eyes with cheap decorations.

Anyway, that's enough of that. Christmas in this house is a bizarre affair. I worked last Christmas day. Nobody else wanted to. So I did it. We seem to spread out our meal over the whole day - starter for breakfast, main at lunch. You get the idea.

We don't have presents. If you need something, it is given to you over the course of the year e.g. I have a new winter coat, and have had it since October. It's the same as some girl on Emmerdale's so I'm told (I don't know, I'm usually still on my way home from work at this time).

We also don't send Christmas cards. Now, I don't even believe in giving a birthday card to people I see every day. If I see you on the day, you get a present and a hug (depending on how well I know you) but not a card. If you live miles away, like say my family, then I send a card. Often a voucher comes with the card if you're a close member of family. But my family keep in contact with letters and e mails and we don't see it necessary to send any extra cards and waste our little money on postage, especially since we'll probably speak over the Christmas period anyway.

There's one decoration up in this house at present - an advent wreath. It's pretty, but never used. Kept for next year, and the next year etc.

I don't feel the need to have Christmas shoved in my face from October, which sadly it is. And it unnecessarily increases our workload at work. You people get ill this time of year anyway, I don't need you stressing about things that are going to happen as they usually do aside the one or two days that we're closed.

It's not that we don't celebrate Christmas, it's that we don't do it the same way as everyone else. I don't always see the need to make a fuss over a single day. The most important thing about Christmas in this house this year (we didn't have Christmas at all last year, as we were in mourning) is that we're all together. And none of us are working.

Even if we are all rather unwell at present.