Humbug, Scrooge, Grinch...whatever...

Tonight I'm missing my work Christmas party. Yes, yes - I know. While it is considered to be bad form by many not to attend; in my defence, I was double booked. But before you rename me Ebeneezer - it might be the company-wide party I'm missing, but I've still got my team Christmas lunch to look forward to, and the customary drinks-after-work-on-the last-day-of-term affair. I very much doubt I'd have been missed anyway. There'll have been the same gossip as last year which I'll hear all about tomorrow - someone will have made a horrendous fashion faux-pas; someone will have kissed someone they shouldn't have; someone will have said something they definitely shouldn't have; and there'll be beautiful pasty faces, panda eyes and hangovers galore at work in the morning. And besides, I'm on a mission this week. And that mission is truffles.

In a vain attempt to save some dosh this Christmas, I decided to make all my presents for work. Last year when I was the new girl, it was sprung on me at the last minute that my team of eight all buy gifts for each other, so I had to hot-foot it into town on my lunch hour and hastily ended up making my own crackers. (Bought a couple of cracker kits and filled them with sweets and mini games. They went down well. My stress levels did not. Fighting the shopping crowds a few days before Christmas with an hour's window is not my idea of a good time.) So this year, I'm more prepared and fancy testing my culinary skills. I've been out for the ingredients, have jars and decorations a-go-go and am all set to whip up a confectionery storm. However, I have never made any such things before and sweet treats are known not to be my forte in the kitchen, so this could all go hideously wrong. If I end up with inedible chocolate golf balls that look like they were made on the Generation Game, I'll resort to Plan B: olives and herbs in oil.

And it's my last full week at work before Christmas this week - awoohoo! The little iPod is loaded with Yuletide tunes and I'm ready to sing. In my head, of course. I wouldn't subject the hungover office to the horrors of my tuneless voice. Then again...

Really, you shouldn't have...

Well, since it's December and we're officially into Advent, I'm allowing myself to think about Christmas. Briefly. I've been avoiding all the Christmas advertising like the plague for the last month, but now I'm starting to make a mental list of things I might buy for people. It can be really hard - you want to find something that you know will be appreciated, otherwise your gift recipient will have to put their best Oscar-winning acting skills into gear on Christmas morning and feign delight over some truly terrible present.

I have had to call upon the very same skills myself on several occasions. I was always told that it's the thought that counts; but thinking back to all those heinous gifts I have received throughout the years (usually from 'well-meaning' elderly relatives, whom I have still written thank you notes for, I might add, albeit through graciously gritted teeth), I realise that this was just my parents way of placating me to write out said notes while they could have a good chuckle about it all. So, here's my run-down of all the nasty tat I have experienced that dreaded sinking feeling with as I unwrapped just what I never wanted.

The Truly Awful Christmas Gift Parade:

• Handkerchiefs. These aren't so bad, I suppose. But they always get left in their box and passed to the nearest village tombola.
• Marzipan fruits. I don't like marzipan. Nobody I know likes marzipan. I think these were donated to a neighbour who needed to decorate a cake for a Harvest Festival the following September.
• A plaque with my surname engraved on. Did this person know me at all? No.
• Grandma perfume. You just know that whoever gave you it has wrapped up an unwanted present they received themselves.
• A jar of peanuts. I kid you not. Still, they were eaten by hungry revelers on New Year's Eve.
• Vegetables. Useful, yes. But for Christmas? Really?
• Pot-pourri. Does anyone under 50 even know what its for?!
  
• A box of biscuits. Not so bad, you might think. Well, ordinarily this would have been a perfectly nice gift. Except that they'd been opened, and all the good biscuits were missing.
• Pyjamas that would fit an eight year-old. I was 16 at the time.
• A porcelain clown. I have an irrational fear of clowns (which in hindsight probably started with this awful ornament staring down at my from my bedroom shelf) and attempted several times to kill this menacing creature by throwing balled-up socks at it. I eventually broke its foot and my mother dearest finally removed him from my room.
• A brooch to clip your silk scarf in place. Delightful for your favourite Great Aunt, not so much for a child under ten. Unless said child has a thing for 1950s attire. I did not. It was the 80s.
  
• A lipstick - which had been used! It was promptly binned. Honestly, just don't bother.
  
• A book of erotic poetry. I was 13, and looking back - hope I was given it by mistake.
• Fancy-looking (but not really) soaps which always come wrapped in waxed paper and smell like the contents of a grandma's handbag - i.e. a sickly, stinky mixture of mint imperials, lavender-scented drawer liners and Yardley face rouge.
  

Good gawd. I know I must sound like an ungrateful little bugger, but sometimes it really is better to give than receive.