This week Natalie shares her experience of the Christmas holidays, scooter assembling and all. Recognise how she is feeling? Comment below and let us know!
These past few weeks have been spent stockpiling secret stashes of booze, desperately trying to find the scissors and hiding in the cupboard from noisy relatives.
Most third years are split in half over Christmas: the first half ignore their mounting piles of coursework and exam revision notes in exchange for booze and copious amounts of chocolate, and the second half try to do all that but fail. Unfortunately, I fall into the second category and have spent most of my holiday so far battering the keys on my laptop and hoping if I punch hard enough my dissertation will just write itself. All the while angrily swigging from both a J20 and a bottle of whisky.
“I fall into the second category and have spent most of my holiday so far battering the keys on my laptop and hoping if I punch hard enough my dissertation will just write itself”
For some reason my parents decided the best time of year to have their bathroom redesigned is Christmas, meaning that our house containing 10 people (not including guests) had to share one small bathroom (smaller than in halls) – bringing back my devastating childhood caravan holiday flashbacks.
Usually I can be saved from the harassment of nieces and nephews and the noisy grandparents bearing mistletoe by the Christmas television. I’m talking blockbusters on back to back, great comedy Christmas specials and some classic tunes. But is it just me or was the TV line-up this year terrible? I mean I’m not complaining about old-school comedy, I love Fawlty Towers as much as the next girl, but non-stop back to backs of The Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise really get on my tits. Don’t get me wrong, Peter Kay’s alright but I don’t love him enough to watch a whole damn evening celebrating his career. Although, to be fair, the day Christmas gets ruined by the TV selection and not my family is the day the apocalypse starts.
One plus of this Christmas is that luckily this year I didn’t have to utilise my amazing acting skills when presented with gifts – as they weren’t half bad. Plus the infamous Lynx Africa gift set didn’t make an appearance in my male relatives’ gift piles (which may well be a sign of the apocalypse) meaning that all round the whole family did well with the gift giving.
“One plus of this Christmas is that luckily this year I didn’t have to utilise my amazing acting skills when presented with gifts”
Anyway, being an auntie to six young children, I spent most of my Christmas morning attempting to assemble their annoying, and not to mention loud, gifts. If I took away one thing from the experience it’s that toy packaging writers are lying scum: the scooter was not ‘easy to assemble’ and the recorder was most definitely not ‘fun for all the family’.
So to conclude, the Christmas of (I’m guessing) most third years has been spent worrying over coursework and getting pissed, either as a procrastination technique, or to cope with the family drama.
Natalie Mallory
Embedded image: Paul Townsend via Flickr. Featured image: Jere Keys via Flickr.
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