Sniffy Advent: Day, the first

Not forgetting that today is World AIDS Day, it is also the first day of Advent.

Advent is of course "the liturgical period preceding Christmas, beginning in Western churches on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and in Eastern churches in mid-November, and observed by many Christians as a season of prayer, fasting, and penitence."

Here in the UK, this meaning is lost and each day of Advent simply means a little choccie from a calendar for a greedy guts nipper.

I know Herge is doing something wonderful and festive each day in the run up to Christmas, but that doesn't stop the rest of us having a bit of fun and marking this very special and important time of year.

Each day, I hope to spread the joy of Christmas by bringing you my thoughts on the special, the wonderful, the tacky, the irritating and the plain awful things you see, hear and experience only at this time of year (or from late October if you live in a scummy part of the world like I do).

Day 1 of the Sniffy Advent Calendar is suitably marked by what met me when I got home yesterday evening:

What in the name of sanity is that fucking thing? In addition to a number of exterior lighting decs, this thing is floating from an upstairs window of the house opposite. It is a beacon that shines through the night and, it being over a metre high, spreads its light for miles around. What the fuck is it?

I actually love both the tastefulness of some and the tackiness of other exterior lights at Christmas. I drive the streets in awe of the people's efforts and their altruism in spending hard earned cash on the original outlay and upkeep of such utter tat.

The worst and cheapest, nastiest lights are those horrible so called "icicles", where the chasing lights give the impression of, well I don't know what it's supposed to be apart from shitty and cheap. Another pet hate of mine are those nets of lights that cover the inside of windows - truly awful! Why would you waste the money on something that looks so utterly wank? Because IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

No doubt exterior lights will feature again in the Sniffy Advent, but I thought this thing was fantastic for a start.

The Christmas Mystery

There's a chap who is from, errrm, Norway or Sweden (somewhere Scandanavian), called Jostein Gaarder. I think he's a philosopher, but he's written a number of books for youngsters that are thought-provoking and extremely well-written; I've read two of these. One is "The Solitaire Mystery" and the other is "The Christmas Mystery". If you love a good Christmas story, I really do recommend that you read The Christmas Mystery, which tells a story covering the Advent period. It's even better if you have children because you can read them a day at a time in the run-up to Christmas Eve.

If you've got brats, do them a favour and nip to the bookshop to buy this today so you can start reading it to them this evening. I know that, as a child, I'd have LOVED to have heard this wonderful story in the run-up to Christmas. I think there are only about four years in a child's life when they are both aware and amazed by the real magic of Christmas and it'd be a shame for them to miss out because you wanted to get home in time for The Weakest Link.