If you are a big Christmas fan, you will probably be a bit confused as to why I hate this particular holiday so much.

Ros at Christmas

Many people in the last week (particularly poor Goon) have had to put up with some very big rants as the bar we’re sitting in plays that bloody Mariah Carey monstrosity AGAIN!

If I haven’t scared you off already, let me tell you why I have so much venom when it comes to December 25th. Like with all good neuroses it dates back to childhood experience. For a start, the typical Christmas and/or New Year event in the South London Sri Lankan community would be something like this. Ten to fifteen families pile into one house, each bringing one of the bottles of wine that was offered to them the last time they were party host.

Most of the time it’s still in its previous wrapping. If the guest is particulary unlucky, it will have a gift tag addressed to the person who owned it three years before. 

Also, the matriarch of each family will bring a dish to contribute to a very large buffet, which is generally cold by the time you get to eat it. Quantity rather than quality is what is important here. The idea is you fill your face with as much grub as you can and quickly enough so you can’t taste it. If you do decide to savour anything you’ll discover that the food generally falls into three categories: inedibly hot Sri-Lankan curry, disastrous misinterpretation of a ‘Western’ (as they like to put it) dish or the horrendous and dreadful PINEAPPLE FLUFF!

Yes, pineapple fluff does need a category of its own. I cannot begin to describe the wrongness of this ‘dessert’.  It was GREEN for God’s sake. Not a nice green, but a radioactive luminous green. As for the texture…. imagine eating a mouse and finding it crammed full of tough little hairs. EUUURGH! It still gives me the shivers.

Strangely enough I found a picture online not a million miles away from what I’m thinking of.

To make it worse, the Aunty responsible for making it (why we call non-relatives Aunties in Sri Lanka I’ll never understand), would be there at your shoulder monitoring how much you ate. If it wasn’t enough she would be ready to run off and tell the rest of the room (including your parents) how you were clearly anorexic. This happened at a time when I weighed 13 stone. WTF?!

On top of that you’re crammed in one small room with 30 random kids. A few you like, a lot you dislike and a bunch of hyperactive four-year-olds who are very lucky they left all those parties in one piece.

Then in comes the uncle who has had too much punch. He insists that you MUST dance with him, before attempting to demonstrate his own skill and falling over, occasionally squashing one of the four year olds. 

So, that is why Christmas makes me break out in a cold sweat. For me it was all about being locked in a room with people I hated and being force-fed pineapple fluff by their parents. Admittedly its not like that any more. Whilst I often end up having to stay at my parents’ on Xmas day, if the mere suggestion of going round to Auntie X’s is brought up, I immediately lock myself in my room.

So this year, like last year I am ignoring Christmas. If only they’d quit it with the endless cycle of Band Aid, Winter Wonderland and that stupid ‘Santa Baby’ song, I could convince myself it wasn’t happening at all.

A food specific post is o its way tomorrow - I got myself a mutton leg .

Oh and if you need more evidence that Christmas is bad, watch this and pay special attention to the lyrics.