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Tuesday 13 November 2018

175. Christmas conflict

When we first came to Bulgaria, Christmas definitely wasn’t a thing. In our village at least, Christmas Day was a bit of a non-event. The shop over the road still opened, the bus service ran as normal, and we were still expected next door for our customary morning coffee (drastically cutting into my alcohol-drinking time). Most houses went undecorated. Wandering around the local town in December, you’d be hard-pressed to notice many signs of Christmas.  

Things might be changing, though. There are advent calendars on the shelves in the supermarket (having taken over from the Halloween crap – which also wasn’t a thing a few years ago). And the Metro catalogue is already flogging an extensive selection of ‘Christmas’ gifts (sets of body washes, whiskey with a matching glass, and so on). 

I’m not sure how I feel about this. Christmas in the UK is an overly sentimental, disgustingly commercial exercise and, personally, I think it’d be a shame if Bulgaria went the same way. But … I bloody love Christmas. Even though it’s overly sentimental and disgustingly commercial, I love it. At Christmas it’s acceptable to drink sherry at 10am, and no one emails me for days on end. It’s absolute bliss. And if the increasing commercialisation of Christmas in Bulgaria means it's easier to buy a good-quality panettone and some marzipan, is that really such a bad thing? So. Conflicted. Argh.

Anyhow, I’ve been thinking such deep-and-meaningfuls because we made our Christmas cake last night and it’s got me all a-flutter about the season of goodwill/cocktails/watching Home Alone.

In other Christmas-related news, debate rages on about whether we should get a Christmas tree this year. We always have done before, but this year we’ve got these arseholes to contend with…

Get down from there, you little git!

And you can get down, too, you little git!

Aw, they're so cute, I love them so much. Oh wait...

Get off my plants, you git!

What do you say, should we get a tree knowing full well we’ll have to pick it up off the floor each morning? Vote ‘hell yes’ or ‘bah humbug’ now…