10 DAYS TO CHRISTMAS

This is how I see Christmas, blue, blue and more blues.


This is how my Mum sees Christmas.

Remember the movie, The Griswolds' Family Christmas? I intend to bury a copy with M so she can light up Heaven. I hate to think what she'll do with Angels and sheet lightning.

Every year she tries to outdo the Griswolds. She pays extra credits on the electricity all year to pay for the Christmas extravaganza. There is so much lighting I wouldn't be surprised to see three wise men turn up with gifts. An extra danger is the fact she's near the flight path of the local airport. There must be a way for the blinking lights to say "not here, mate!".

I refuse to help, so call me Grinch, but I have enough gripes about Christmas without stringing pissy little bulbs on pissy little wires over the house, carport and every tree in the yard. Inside doesn't miss out. the window is made up as a toy shop. I've lost count of the dolls, teddies, elves and tinselled knick-knacks that make their appearance on December l.

It's on the must visit list for every kid within miles. The joy for them is being able to come up the drive right to the window and press their little faces to the glass. Little droolers. She never takes my advice to leave the spiders there to make it interesting. Poor little blighters are sacrificed every year. Dutiful (not me) daughters even wheel the oldies from the nursing home round to see the spectacle.

Now the woman has made me more of a grinch than usual. "I know you hate Christmas," she says. "So I've got something you really want." She's given me a scanner for my computer. A scanner! My dream of a scanner has come true! Oh, am I going to have to pay for this. The grovelling has already gone into overdrive. I can't believe what I've promised to cook for Christmas Day and I'm going to be nice to my *choke* relatives *heave*. I might have an out there since I keep telling them M isn't up to having too many people so they're staggering the visits and if I'm careful I'll miss most of them.

I hate Christmas but I love my scanner. I might even learn to love pissy little lights. Nope, that's too much of a stretch but I love my scanner.