The silly season is upon us again. Where did the year go? I'd like to vote that we have Christmas every 2 years instead of every year - it just comes around too damn quick!

We decorate our homes, covering everything in sight with tinsel (stand still long enough in my house and you will get tinselled too! lol). As you put up these wonderful decorations, you curse to yourself about the work involved in both erecting and dismantling all this Christmas glory.

Shopping is such a joy. Why can't we just find one store with everything we need, with a free checkout when shopping is complete? Because that only exists in fantasy land. Back in the realms of reality, you have to go into numerous stores to find all the right gifts and line up at checkouts for god-knows how long. Then there are the other shoppers to deal with. Don't you just love the ones who block the whole aisle with their trolley? Like, the put the damn thing across the aisle, rather than use some common sense and put it to one side, and you have to nearly yell "excuse me" before they realise someone wants to get through! I'm sure these type of shoppers leave both their brains and their hearing at home!

Christmas Day arrives. The kids have you up at the crack of dawn - how are you supposed to be 'merry' when you are sleep-deprived? Within 1/2 an hour the loungeroom is covered in wrapping paper and toys. Then the little darlings want breakfast. By the time that's all over and all cleaned up it's time to either prepare for the onslaught of the rellies, or head off yourself to some rellies house.

Lunch is a grand affair with all the Christmas meats and side dishes. By the time everyone is more stuffed than the turkey, there's enough food left over to feed a third-world country for a year! The men, by now rather intoxicated, laze half-asleep while the women get the wonderful job of cleaning up.

Between the decorating, the shopping, the lack of sleep, the mess, the rellies, etc, etc, it makes one wonder: why the hell do we do it? The answer is simple: because we love it! We love the silly decorations. We love the battles of getting the right gifts for the right people; we love putting on a huge spread on Christmas Day; we even love the rellies; we just love it all! After all, that's what Christmas is all about!