Sniffy Advent: Day, the seventeenth

Eat, drink, be merry
The celebrations related to Christmas generally have the objectives:

• Eat as much as you can stuff into your face
• Drink constantly

I'm not sure about anybody else, but I wouldn't be feeling particularly merry if I was constantly stuffed to the point of feeling sick and drunk on top of it. Well, mildly tipsy would be nice, but I'm only allowed to sniff the sherry trifle and have a small slice of my booze-soaked Christmas cake.

In "way back" times, when people were poor and food scarce during winter, this mid-winter blow-out was a justified treat and it probably only lasted for a day. Now, in the modern western world, we're a bunch of over-fed, privileged fat bastards anyway AND the celebrations last for at least a week. But it's almost impossible to not grab another handful of peanuts, or another couple of chocolates from the selection box, or another sausage roll from the buffet table (especially when guilt-trip Mother is stood around, reminding you how long it's taken her to prepare it all).

In years gone by, I'd take responsibility for supplying a fair bit of the booze for the Boxing Day running buffet and party. I love sherry and I'd buy a litre of the stuff to sup on (as well as the wine and beer that I'd also consume by the case-load). It'd really piss me off when guests suddenly decided that they also liked sherry too and I'd have to grudgingly pour them a glass as I got myself a top-up. Sherry is one of those drinks that everybody jokes about, pretends not to like, but they all guzzle the fucking stuff when it's on offer!

Fuckers.

With drinking out of the question these days, I just stick to ensuring that there are enough cocktail sausages for the buffet. Just because you kick a habit, it doesn't mean that you don't have a problem. So when people ask me if I'm OK with them drinking, or more specifically, whether I'm OK with having a huge glass of wine near me at the dinner table, the answer is always "Oh yeah, it's fine", when actually, it's hell and the smell of it wafting up at me knocks me for six. But you can't begrudge people having a drink and enjoying themselves. What you can get pissed off about is when they realise that they've had enough, that they don't want to drink anymore and so they move on to drinking.... MY PEPSI MAX!

That is taking the piss.