Please just free yourselves from this festive frenzy

Lucy Penman

Ihave decided not to be drawn in by the festive one-upmanship that starts cranking up about now. I shall keep a disinterested, nay haughty, demeanour and therefore a grip on my sanity and purse as the questions start coming. “What are you doing this year?” “Have you started/finished your Christmas shopping yet?” “Are you doing Nigella/Jamie?” “Have you tried this Christmas cocktail everyone’s raving about?”

OK, so I might be tempted to engage with that last question but as a general rule, I will not be bullied about buying or consuming this year.

This is not as easy as it sounds. It’s not just friends and family piling on the pressure – it goes further than that.

Black Friday? What the...? Why? Apparently, some retailers have gone further with the discount day and declared a Black Friday Weekend. I love a bargain as much as the next shopper but can’t think of anything worse than braving the crowds on one particular day.

There seems to be a new snobbishness surrounding the whole business of bagging a bargain.

The sort of conversation that goes on at certain dinner parties – “You won’t believe what we paid for that whole salmon at one of the discount supermarkets. No, go on guess…” goes up a gear at this time of year to “You aren’t paying full price for your tree/presents/food/drink/decorations are you? Are you mad?”

I don’t care how much money people have saved. Shut up about it. Who cares?

In that spirit, I have already heard some interesting answers to the traditional questions above, from “We were going to give Antigua a miss this year but it’s just so dreary here isn’t it?” to “I had all my presents bought and wrapped by October”, which confirms that there lies the real madness.

Although we will probably end up doing our usual thing of graciously accepting hospitality and accommodation from generous family, I reserve the right to pull up the drawbridge at Penman Towers, stay in my pyjamas for four days and eat cheese sangwidges supplemented by the odd mince pie if I so wish.

And it’s nobody else’s business if I do.

Black Friday? What the...? Why?