It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like...... My First Single Christmas....

My first single Christmas for as long as I can remember has hit me like a snowball fight with Buddy the Elf.

Who doesn’t love Christmas? The single version of myself, apparently.

The festive period has always made me sick with excitement.  Literally sick. Just the thought of chocolate for breakfast, turkey for lunch and brie for tea makes me need to have a little lie down . On many occasions I’ve gone Christmas shopping and had to stop to have a cry at how much I love buying presents.

I never thought I would look at the Christmas tree in Tesco and get a very clear vision of myself as a crazed lumberjack only interested in chopping it down and taking out the entire festive aisle at the same time.

Call me stupid, but it has never before occurred to me that all festivities are geared towards love. Is there nothing out there that can make a single person feel a little bit smug? Let’s face it, if happily loved up couples everywhere are sobbing at a snowman, imagine what it’s doing to the single people. Don’t even get me started on the kid in the Boots advert with the hairdryer and the ‘want to stay at mine more?’. Slapper. Pah.

Honestly, I know Christmas is not all about presents, but this time last year, Virgin Atlantic had a seat booked to NYC in my name. This year I’m looking forward to a life time subscription to match.com and a hilarious ‘grown your own boyfriend’ kit.  

I have been going through the motions well so far. I’ve got a reindeer print duvet, a mulled wine candle and a white sequined kimono that ensures I’ll look like a vajazzled polar bear come Christmas Eve.

I was getting on quite nicely with avoiding anywhere playing festive songs after an embarrassing incident involving sprinting from Debenhams so I didn’t hear Mariah……

It was on the annual trip to purchase my Christmas party dress, I realised I had to fully de scrooge myself. My friend (let’s call her TAC) looked at me in amazement and muttered ‘Oh my God. Since you got single, you can zip your own dress up.’

It made me realise exactly what I have been doing since that boring old day when everything changed. I can zip my own dress up and I can fake tan my own back. I’ve been to three weddings, three hen dos (granted I weeped through most of them), I’ve been on 4 planes, Italian tubes, 800 dates….. hell, I’ve even learnt to poach an egg.

I didn’t do those things on my own. I did them with the friends and family who have been my constant support through the year. Team LLL who have downed numerous shots they don’t even like, just to watch me cry them all back out. The WAGs who let me keep the (self proclaimed) title of Queen WAG, when I was no longer a wife or a girlfriend. The Barbie who took down every photograph from my work pin board and hid them (in the bin). The Bella who got me to Milan and back (just). The sprite who I rang every hungover Sunday without fail. And the family who shut the front door and made anything and everything better.

In true reformed Scrooge style, I’m realising Christmas is about being with the people you love and the people who love you, and this year I can concentrate on that more than anything.

I maybe should have listened to their advice before now…… but the most important words of Barbie wisdom did sink in the other day. I no longer have a list of boyfriend based presents to buy. So, in true Queen WAG style I’ll be spending the money on the Gucci bag I’ve wanted all year (Yes, and a few odds and ends for the people who got me through it)

If you see me fleeing Debenhams with my hands over my ears, just calmly direct me back in. I’m going to have to listen to Carey at some point. But this year, All I Want for Christmas is my friends, my family and a Gucci bag…. Actually.