A few observations on the festive season from under the palm tree

Well, well, quite the Christmas social whirl here since I got back. What this basically means is going out for lots of overpriced lunches/dinners with friends I haven't seen in a year. Also colleagues, as we are corralled like braying cattle into forced festivities. Invariably, this involves staggering home at midnight having eaten too much rich food and imbided more red wine than is really good for one.

I have to confess, I am having more than a little trouble getting in the Christmas mood this year. Last December, we were in the middle of moving house, so I had the perfect excuse to be all bah humbuggy.

This year? I think it has something to do with being stuck on a certain tropical island. It's a bit like the way I felt in Florida. Hard to get in the swing of the holly jolly holidays while sitting under a palm tree sipping a frosty drink and scanning the horizon for the rescue ship. Maybe I can try to carve some reindeer out of those coconuts while I wait.

And there's another thing...Christmas cards. I'm not sure why, but I tend to think the whole idea is dumb and pointless at best, particularly the ones where people just sign their names. And if people scrawl a bit of news, or God forbid, send a newsletter with photographs of the happy clan, I more often than not feel overcome with an urge to stick something sharp into my eye. Maybe it's because I know a lot of people, many of whom I know fine well to be experiencing some...rich complexities of life. But none of that is conveyed in the card. It's all shiny happy Pottery Barn shit.

Please. If you love me, send me a note sometime when you have a minute to write something real, and tell me about your life, not just your big new promotion, your holiday to Cuba, your child's trophy in some obscure martial art.

Actually, I had a big fight with E. the other day about Christmas cards. I got back from Florida to find a card from a friend I shall call "Smug Polly". I went to university with Smug Polly, and we were on extremely friendly terms for a few years. We then had a spectacular falling out over something really dumb, and didn't renew our acquaintence until she was pregnant with her first child. At that stage, E. and I weren't yet trying, and I was more than a little curious about the whole pregnancy/birth/parenting thing.

Smug Polly, in addition to be very smug, falls firmly into the Uber-Fertile category. So there was lots of allusions to the fact that it had been incredibly easy for her to get knocked up, and she hoped it would be the same for me. Then, as time wore on, and it wasn't happening, she joined the Just Relax Brigade. We'd go for a walk in the park with her adorable, delectable toddler, and she would lecture me on the need to chill out and stop being so "goal oriented".

Unsurprisingly, I once again stopped hanging out with Smug Polly shortly thereafter.

But guess what Smug P's news was on the Christmas card? No, really, you'll never ever guess in a million...oh, right, another baby on the way. Smuggity smug.

I threw the card away. E. fished it out of the bin and lectured me on "not being very nice". You know, I love him more than life itself, but sometimes I want to give E. a nice sharp slap upside the head.

However, several days later, buoyed by the good news post-HSG, I was overcome by yuletides gay. I figured I may as well e-mail Smug Polly to say congrats and all that. Peace on earth, good will to fertiles. How quickly I regretted that move, since her reply went something along the lines of "see, there is nothing irreversibly wrong with you. It's all your head, so just relax, and by the way, you are so lucky not to have any kids, because you can go on vacation whenever you like."

WHY do people not appreciate how inappropriate that kind of comment is? I hate to drag out the overused cancer analogy again, but would you really say to someone undergoing chemotherapy that they just need to chill out, and by the way, isn't it neat how they get to wear all those fun wigs? No. I think not.

Now, maybe I shall distract myself by trying to make a sand sculpture snowman.