Grimble

Hot on my post yesterday about the sad demise of Advent, this week's Friday Five is full of the "joys" of the season - the ones that send you screaming from the room. If I didn't know already how much I love and appreciate will smama this would have convinced me :-)

Please tell us your least favorite/most annoying seasonal....

1) dessert/cookie/family food : I hope it won't sound terribly snooty if I say that I utterly detest all of the commercial varieties of brandy butter/rum butter that I've ever tasted....Good home made brandy butter is the only possible justification for Christmas pudding - so to have to consume the one without the other is a miserable experience in my book.


2) beverage (seasonal beer, eggnog w/ way too much egg and not enough nog, etc...) I'm mostly spared yukky drinks...don't think anyone has ever even offered me eggnog (am pretty sure I'd hate it if they did)....and I really love mulled wine. When LCM and I were first married and spent our Christmasses at his parents, there seemed to be an expectation that all women would really enjoy a glass of green chartreuse at the end of Christmas dinner. Deeply, truly and unmistakeably revolting (think bad cough mixture and double it). Thankfully, that tradition passed when the in-laws sold the family home so nowdays I guess I really only dislike drinks that others consume in excess, leading to unhappy atmospheres at social events. (Lord, that sounds sooooo prudish and kill joy. Should I delete? )

3) tradition (church, family, other)
The good thing about being the only child of two only children (deceased) is that I've pretty much been able to set my own family traditions,- so naturally they are completely perfect!
There's nothing specially awful at church either, though at St M's, I've never got the point of fixing blue filters over the lights in the chancel for Midnight Mass - which then have to be removed by weary souls atop exceeding high ladders, before we can safely go home to bed...but that's more incomprehension than actual loathing.

4) decoration
Anything that is up already. It's not even Advent yet...(OK - that was yesterday's whinge; let me come up with something more original). One year we had the misfortune to win a fibre optic village scene in a raffle - which the rather young Dufflepud adored. Let's just say that he was in a minority of one.

5) Gift received or given
There was the year when my MiL produced a wincyette nightie AND some scented writing paper (though she also produced assorted far more desirable gifts - she is one for whom the expression Generous to a Fault was probably invented...)

BONUS: SONG/CD that makes you want to tell the elves where to stick it.
Absolutely no contest.
"Come, they called me, par um pa pa pa pum" And then I put my foot Right through his drum.

And may all your grimble-tides be white!