Let the Madness Begin...

Hello Dhaaarlings...

I have to admit that I really loathe leaving the house at this time of the year and having to fight my way through the Hoards of Christmas Shoppers... Screaming spoilt children, Frazzled Mothers and Disintrested Fathers... all out searching for that "special" something... Not to mention redirecting the disoriented elderly folk that have become confused from all the bright and shiny decorations...

I cannot believe the amounts of stuff that I see getting pushed about in shopping trolleys... and yes I do mean the plural!

Often there seems to be enough food piled up in the trolly until it can almost hold no more...  containing enough food and drink to feed a small country let alone just one family!

And don't start me on the amounts of toys and crap that get purchased for their kids...

A trolley full of crap each!!!....

Do parents these days feel that they need to buy their childrens love? I mean just because I want something doesn't mean that I need to have it. Luckily I had parents that could say No!

OK, so I might have got a little angry because my want was refused, I might have thrown the odd tantrum and as a result have been sent to my room... But it didn't make me love them any less. And thinking back I  think that their saying No probably made me love and appreciate them more as I grew older. They knew what I needed.

It was their job as a parent to set boundaries and limits on our behaviours, to give us time out to reflect, to provide a safe place to learn these things in a loving environment... to meat our needs as best they could given the circumstances... and they certainly were not our "Friends" growing up. They earned our respect as our parents... The friendship came later as we reached adulthood.

Love was always a given...

Christmas morning there was always a gift under the tree... It may not have always been something that I thought I wanted... but it was always something that I needed.

Enough reflection...

I've done my shopping for Christmas this year thankfully...

The Empress and I pool our megre resources and start purchasing small gift items for the Grandchildren/Nieces and Nephews from about June onwards. With around 25 little people to cater for we need to make an early start...

The Empress usually takes charge of the storage of these items until about this time of year... and really sometimes it is like watching a squirrel trying to find its well buried nuts... when the time comes for sorting and wrapping of the gifts. It is not unusual to find a bag of goodies that were purchased the year before and hidden so well that at the time it required an emercency trip to town to replace the "Missing" items...

Fortunately this year dispite the chaos there have been no such surprises...

It's all wrapped taged and organised.... each family has a bag of gifts ready to be delivered or picked up (Which ever event comes first).... Things needing to be posted have been sent last week.

So this year for a nice change we seem to be well on top of things...

Which means that I have more time to post Arse for your pleasure...

See...

I told you I'd been busy wrapping gifts....

Darlings...