It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Happy December! My Christmas tree is up and decorated. The Christmas CDs have been dug out of the cupboard. My Santa hat is… too small for my head and I have to buy a new one.

For those of you not yet feeling the Christmas spirit, I give you 11 reasons to love the festive season:

1. Tinsel: It’s shiny and everybody loves shiny things.
2. Food: It’s delicious and there’s plenty of it.
3. Presents: Not just receiving them, but using a ridiculous amount of sticky tape when you wrap gifts for other people so you can watch their frustrated attempts to free whatever it was that you found on sale at the last minute.
4. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is on TV: Classic.
5. Summer (for people in the southern hemisphere only): Beer and BBQ. ‘Nuff said.
6. ‘It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas’ as performed by Alvin and the Chipmunks: It has never stopped being hilarious and never will. Check it out here (skip to 0:53 for the LOLs and an enormous dose of cheer).
7. Christmas songs in general: The only time of the year when it’s acceptable to belt out a Mariah Carey song.
8. Fairy lights: The only time of the year when it’s acceptable to put brightly coloured flashing lights all over your house.
9. Photos with Santa: The only time of the year when it’s acceptable to let your child sit on a strange, old, beardy man’s knee and tell him what toys they want.
10. Sneaky mistletoe: The sexual harasser’s greatest ally.
11. That rare moment when a bird lands in your Christmas tree: