Helpful Xmas Advice

[catgate]

I was asked a couple of years ago for advice on surviving Christmas. Here are the notes that I penned:-

More than 22 Ways to survive the Christmas Festivities

1. Ensure you are in the peak of condition for the festive trials about to be encountered. Drink lots and lots of alcohol, in all its various forms, for several days leading up to an event. In this way, even if the particular event is not to your liking or you show yourself up, you will be totally oblivious to it.

2. No one likes a glutton, so do not let anyone see you eating the left over jelly and trifle.

3. A sing-song is perpetually popular at Christmas, so if you can knock out a tune on your piano always take it with you to parties. You will invariably be welcome.

4. Always wash behind your ears.

5. Keep a packet of icing sugar handy.

6. Remember to replace the battery in granny's hearing aid with an old dead one. In this way she will not be able to complain about the excessive noise, and you should get a few laughs as a bonus.

7. Inner cleanliness is a must at this time of the year. Start a couple of weeks before Christmas and take out your spleen each day. Rinse it in a weak mixture of washing up liquid and dry Martini and then dab it dry, on a paper kitchen towel, prior to popping it back. Do the same with your gall bladder if you get dyspepsia too often during the festivities, but substitute Asti Spumanti for the dry Martini (well it is Christmas).

8. Try to enter into the spirit of things by hanging the Christmas decorations in a novel way this year. The ladies could decorate the inside of their handbags with baubles and streamers whilst the gentlemen could hang fairy lights right up the inside of their trouser legs.

9. Should you wake up and peer blearily into the mirror after a "night before" and think "Oh my God ! What a mess. Don't I look awful!", take heart from the fact that given only the smallest bit of luck you will soon be looking something like normal, whereas Barbara Cartland had to go through life permanently looking like that.

10. When it comes to presents don't be seen to be mean. A little care in looking through and selecting those carefully stored unwanted trivialities, that you received as presents last year, should result in your apparent generosity, when they are neatly wrapped in last years used, but carefully stored and ironed, wrappings.

11. Do not smile too much. People will think either you are inebriated or you are "up to something".

12. Should carol singers turn up at your front door do not open it and tell them to go away. Instead, creep out of the back door and round to the front, surreptitiously join them and start singing, pretending you are a second lot of singers. That way, if someone does come to the door with charity or hospitality, you will be on the receiving end.

13. Never look a gift horse in the mouth, nor, if it has just been fed, stand too near it at the other end.

14. Remember Mrs. Shackleton.

15. A nice seasonal gesture would be to enquire about the Neighbourhood Watch and then offer to wind it up a couple of times.

16. Try to obtain one of the latest open-toe, slingback parcel shelves. Then sterilise it.

17. Collect all the giblets you possibly can. If you are lucky you could start an EEC giblet mountain, and may be get a millennium award.

18. Try to find out what it was that Robin Hood made Marion, and why.

19. Do not overfill your granddad's waistcoat with loose suet.

20. Try to avoid too much Television, it's not good for you. Look what it did for Bruce Forsythe and his saga.

21. If the conversation at any time gets round to someone you know, remember the old Christmas saying, "If you can find nothing nice to say about a person, then find something nasty".

22. One of the things you can do if you have a heavy hangover is to boil a couple of lemons for ten minutes, or until they have just gone soft, place them between two slices of wholemeal brown bread (avoid Hovis), and post them to Margaret Beckett.

23. When you are next in his proximity have a good look at the parsons nose. It may do nothing for your appreciation of the finer points of fowl anatomy but it could give you a good giggle.

[Thos]

Great. very funny.

I liked them all and even the title of "more than 22 ways" had me chuckling.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Thos.

[andsome]

All duly noted.

[dadyassa]

:w00t: :w00t: :w00t:

[r4may]

:biggrin: :biggrin:

[dadyassa]

14. Remember Mrs. Shackleton........ remind me Ive had a senior moment :happy:

[catgate]

14. Remember Mrs. Shackleton........ remind me Ive had a senior moment :happy:

You remember...... She lived next door to Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, at number 7. The woman two doors down from them used to go down to't club...ate chips with 'er fingers....her husband used to wear a flat cap with a button on the top. Well it was her daughter that was caught up a lamp post, with orange and banana in one ear, and cream and custard in the other. She claimed she was a trifle deaf. When it was found out that she had no handle on her teapot they put it all down to the fact that she thought she was a ham sandwich. Ever since then we always spread a little mustard on her each Christmas when she comes round carol singing. No not Mrs Shackleton's daughter ...the daughter of her two doors down from the Arkwright's.

[artist]

14. Remember Mrs. Shackleton........ remind me Ive had a senior moment :happy:

You remember...... She lived next door to Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, at number 7. The woman two doors down from them used to go down to't club...ate chips with 'er fingers....her husband used to wear a flat cap with a button on the top. Well it was her daughter that was caught up a lamp post, with orange and banana in one ear, and cream and custard in the other. She claimed she was a trifle deaf. When it was found out that she had no handle on her teapot they put it all down to the fact that she thought she was a ham sandwich. Ever since then we always spread a little mustard on her each Christmas when she comes round carol singing. No not Mrs Shackleton's daughter ...the daughter of her two doors down from the Arkwright's.

Oh, god - he's off again!! :laugh: :laugh:

[andsome]

He's been off a long time.

[Thos]

dadyassa----You really shouldn't have asked.

catgate-----That is a funny post.

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

Thos.

[dadyassa]

14. Remember Mrs. Shackleton........ remind me Ive had a senior moment :happy:

You remember...... She lived next door to Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, at number 7. The woman two doors down from them used to go down to't club...ate chips with 'er fingers....her husband used to wear a flat cap with a button on the top. Well it was her daughter that was caught up a lamp post, with orange and banana in one ear, and cream and custard in the other. She claimed she was a trifle deaf. When it was found out that she had no handle on her teapot they put it all down to the fact that she thought she was a ham sandwich. Ever since then we always spread a little mustard on her each Christmas when she comes round carol singing. No not Mrs Shackleton's daughter ...the daughter of her two doors down from the Arkwright's.

Gotcha now, you mean shyanne, she got the nickname cos she always wore 2 or 3 pairs of knickers.

[catgate]

Gotcha now, you mean shyanne, she got the nickname cos she always wore 2 or 3 pairs of knickers.

She was her sister on her mother's side. On her father's side she was a small wart. She always thought he said "Stalwart"...silly girl.

[andsome]

Gotcha now, you mean shyanne, she got the nickname cos she always wore 2 or 3 pairs of knickers.

How did you find that out? :laugh:

[don't ask]

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

[dadyassa]

Gotcha now, you mean shyanne, she got the nickname cos she always wore 2 or 3 pairs of knickers.

How did you find that out? :laugh:

We always used to send her up the tree to get the conkers for us and you could see the different colours :wink: :wink: