This year I’m pretending to be authentic.  

I am blessed to have gathered enough people of note to have written heartfelt greetings in a handful of cards.  I have used love and four cheeses to make food for some of the souls I cherish and I know that at least a couple of the gifts I have wrapped will delight and brighten their recipients.  I am really fucking lucky.

At this time of year, when my fridge is rammed and my waxing’s up to date, I am acutely aware of the layers of spangle and showbiz I apply to keep my personal pantomime looking all sparkly.  

I can defend myself in this.  

I might have spent years kicking myself in the head that I’m essentially a moderately wobbly woman with cupboards you could grow cress in, a Mac on plastic, a tendency to drunk text the virile and the most likely person I know to swap the family cow for magic beans.  Moreover I have no right to pretend my hair is straight (it’s almost pubic) or that I’m in control of myself, my offspring or my budget.

But now, all of a sudden, I’m really proud of myself and of all the little lies I stand for.

Has it been my insecurities that have kept me grinning, small-talking and turning up looking smart all these years?  Yes, probably.  But this isn’t all of the story.  I know that when I put on my razzle dazzle I am much, much nicer to be around.  No matter how I dress it up, being chirpy and chipper, sharing only the best of myself is so much kinder to my fellow man than moaning all frigging day and pointing out the faults in the fabric of things – I’ll save gloomy introspection and the ‘why is everyone stupid’ monologues for my evenings in.

Keeping it real is one thing.  Speaking my mind is another.  Respecting my fellow traveller enough to feign interest in their suspected-coeliac-centric-shitted-themselves-in-zizzis Christmas office party story or to throw back my head and laugh at a brilliant, festive joke tie/hat/offer of intercourse, is my gift.  

Call it two faced kiss assery if you will but I shall continue to twirl and dance my grease-painted way through the crowds, surface-loving every damn one of them – we’ll all feel better for it.

No matter how gnarly/vacuous/nonsensical the festive season appears when it turns up on your doorstep I wish you just the right amount of strength to bat the bugger away and pull off a soft shoe shuffle.  

May we all be merry and bright (at least in the photographs).

Big Love

angelreader

questions, suggestions, reflections to kitty@angelreader.co.uk