"So this is Christmas...

...and what have you done?" John Lennon once interrogated.  Except it's an unnecessary question really, isn't it?  Ask anyone how their Christmas went and you'll generally get a shrug of the shoulders and an "it was alright - we didn't do much".  Sometimes people will say "we treated ourselves and went out for dinner", which is your cue to then say "wow...that's great...no mess and someone else does all the cooking!" to which they'll usually reply "yes, but it was a bit expensive and it wasn't like a proper home Christmas".  Soporific conversations like that take place every. single. year.  

This year, probably due to the "exceptionally mild weather we've been having; it's all those deodorants" (thanks Nan), I've heard a lot of people saying they don't feel 'Christmassy'.  I thought I would combat this apathy by listing exactly "what I have done" this Christmas, just to remind myself what feeling 'Christmassy' actually means.  This goes as follows:

• Listen to elderly relatives tell me about how I "didn't know what it was like to have to reuse things and go without at Christmas...not when there was a war on and everything was rationed".  Well...no, I don't.  I don't really think that's my fault, though; it's just a random accident of birth.  I could practise...if my Nan would only ration everything she gives me to eat that's gone out of date, that might be a good start!
• Listen to middle-aged relatives tell me about their problems with BT and Sky's customer service departments.
• Have fun telling kids what Christmas was like "in my day".  I'm in training for when I'm old; OK so I don't have a war to go on about, but when my friend's little girl was watching the Christmas edition of 'The Cube' I turned to her and said "When I was your age, Philip Schofield had brown hair".  She was suitably awed.
• Listen to swathes of parents moaning about how kids aren't grateful for what they get at Christmas; how they aren't appreciative of all the effort that goes into everything.  But why should they be?  From my limited observations, they're not taught to.  When I was little (again!) I only got presents at Christmas, and I had to write everybody who bought me something a 'thank-you' note, even if the present was something terrible like a bath towel with a picture of a cartoon face on it.  It is just a general observation, but it doesn't seem as though either of those aspects of childhood Christmases are all that common now.  
• Eat cheese.  Lots of it.  So much of it that I try to make myself feel better by saying "I'm going to give up cheese in the new year!" whilst knowing full well that by 3rd January I'll be enjoying a sandwich filled with Cheddar sliced so thickly it could be used to wedge the doors open at the Kremlin.  But it's all part of the fun, isn't it?
• Watch rubbish films.  This year I tried the latest 'Sherlock Holmes' which was really awesomely bad and affirmed why I don't usually bother with non Bob Holness-related 'blockbusters'.
• Eat chocolate.  Lots of it.  So much of it that I try...well, you know the drill.