Calm down, Christmas.

Hell hath no fury like a father in the queue for a National Trust car park shuttle bus. Or so I found out last weekend when I truly discovered what ‘Giving someone daggers’ actually felt like. Seriously. Had the guy not had a screaming toddler strapped to his back I’m not sure I would have lived to tell the tale. Yes, it was freezing cold. Yes, he was at the front of a very long queue and it might have looked like I was pushing in. But all I wanted was to ask the nice lady in the high-vis jacket and matching Santa hat a question.

“It’s OK!” I chirruped, hoping to change his stony face. “Not pushing in!”

The guy snarled back. Actually snarled.

Had we not all enjoyed a lovely Christmas market and twinkly light display I would have forgiven him his grumpiness, but this was a juxtaposition of a magical Christmassy setting and the world’s most-furrowed brow.

WARNING: BLOG CLICHÉ COMING UP... Is it just me or have people gone a little crazy in the run up to Christmas this year? I blame Black Friday. It makes me a little bit ill just writing those words, because Black Friday isn’t really a thing in the UK. It’s a US tradition linked to Thanksgiving and as far as I could tell it was simply an excuse for retailers to palm off a load of old tat to wild-eyed shoppers wearing knuckle-dusters.

I don’t mind a bit of over-excitement at Christmas (we regularly have to pin my Dad’s feet to the floor and find his volume switch on Christmas Eve) but it’s the highly-stressed, joyless, endless shopping and rushing about that’s going on right now that is the issue. 

I was merrily enjoying a Christmas wee in a well-known department store when I noticed a gift card stuffed with £20s on the cubicle floor. I rushed out (after doing all the necessary hygiene checks) to find the lady who was in there before me, expecting something reminiscent of the final scene of It’s a Wonderful Life, only to be thanked with a snatch and a grunt. Next time I won’t wash my hands. That’ll show her. 

But Christmas is also a time of forgiveness (apparently – not sure why – Jesus? No, that’s Easter). So I smiled back at the snarling mega-dad, and I shrugged at the indifferent money-loser-er and I’ll try very hard not to ram my buggy into people as I do my Christmas food shop – even if I am in danger of losing that last pack of mince-pies to a stray octogenarian in M&S.

God (or whoever) bless us. Every one.