Let the Christmas countdown begin (From Watford Observer)

Let the Christmas countdown begin

11:12am Monday 2nd November 2009

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I hate to mention the C word so early in November, but now that we’ve packed away the gory excesses of Hallowe’en and possibly lit a couple of safety-conscious sparklers at the end of the back garden to mark Guy Fawkes’ night, it’s time to turn our thoughts to all things tinsel.

I realise that many people view the onset of Christmas (there! I’ve said it) with all the comfort and joy associated with a trip to the dentist for a bout of root canal work, but I absolutely love this time of year.

If I’m wandering round a supermarket about now, just a couple of parps from the jaunty brass section of Jona Lewie’s Christmas classic ‘Stop the Cavalry’ is enough to bring a soppy smile to my face and set me off down the cake aisle in a Pavlovian search for mince pies and mini stollen bites.

To be fair though, I’m pretty sure if that if you work in a shop where the same seasonal songs are about to be played on a never-ending loop for the next two months, by the time the tills ring out their final festive chimes on Christmas Eve you’ll already regard something like the chorus of Stop The Cavalry as the most exquisite form of torture known to man.

I imagine that by early December, exposure to just one more rousing chorus of Roy Wood and Wizzard wishing it could be Christmas every day will be enough to send you gibbering to a corner of the nearest changing room where you’ll be found later in the afternoon hiding under a pile of noise-numbing fleecy jumpers.

As I said, I’m quite keen on these cheesy sonic staples of the season, but I’m assured by a relative in retail that she wants to lock herself in the stock room and scream silently into the serried ranks of velvet evening dresses on the day (around now) when the order goes out from head office for the official arrival of the great sound of Christmas in her store.

The marketing men are spot on though. All that jingling music and twinkling glitter certainly does the job when it comes to cranking up the sentiment.

I was out shopping with a friend and her six-year-old daughter during half term last week and after walking through a store where Santa and all his works were very already very much in evidence little Edie went strangely quiet.

When we sat down for a coffee, my concerned friend asked her unusually silent daughter if she felt OK. Edie looked pensive for a moment and then sighed deeply and said that she felt “a little bit sad”.

My friend and I exchanged anxious glances over the cappuccino cups, Was Edie ill? Perhaps she was going down with swine flu? Or, even worse, was she about to tell us about some horrible bullies at school?

Further gentle questioning revealed the cause of the infant’s ennui.

“It’s just that I’ve worked out there are 57 days to go until Christmas, but I feel all Christmassy now and I’m not sure I can wait that long,” she said, with the air of tragically serious desperation that only a six-year-old can do really well.

My friend and I tried not to snort frothy coffee across the table as we suppressed our mirth.

Mind you, I couldn’t help but be impressed at Edie’s prodigy-like ability to silently compute the correct number of shopping days to December 25 without even counting on her fingers.

At just six years old she’s clearly a girl after my on heart, but one with a far better grasp of mental arithmetic.

*****

While on the subject of Christmas, I have discovered that this year’s must-have gift, as far as fashion mavens are concerned, is a peculiarly sickly shade of green nail varnish.

Apparently, the waiting list for this product stretches to New York and back as ladies about town clamour for Winter 2009’s beauty essential.

I knew something was up when I met a friend after work last week.

My lovely, scatty pal Kerry is terribly fashion-forward. I never quite know what to expect when I see her – she was dressing like Lady Ga Ga before the latter was out of nappies.

As you can imagine this often made meeting for a meal at somewhere like Pizza Express or Café Rouge quite an event. Kerry would arrive swathed in an electric blue fun fur and sunglasses the size of dinner plates, only to ditch the fur to reveal a minute vintage prom dress beneath this ensemble that appeared to be made from something like Baco-foil.

Most people wouldn’t bat an eye today, I’m sure, but back in the early 90s Kerry was a one-woman clothes show.

Anyway, she’s now secure in her high-level niche on Planet Fashion and still determinedly ahead of the game.

I couldn’t help but notice last week that she was gripping the stem of her wine glass in a rather awkward way. When that didn’t do the trick she started to gesticulate with her fingers a lot, splaying her hands on the tablecloth between us for added emphasis.

Eventually, exhausted by my inability to spot a fashion happening at arm’s length, she gave up on subtlety and drew my attention to the alarming shade of green painted on her fingernails.

“It’s Chanel’s Jade, the colour that everyone’s going mad for this season,” she explained, adding that the likelihood of anyone getting their hands on a bottle of this Holy Grail for nails was slimmer than Jonathan Ross being offered a knighthood in the New Year’s Honours List.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Hmmm…tricky. What I kept thinking was that the last time I’d seem fingers like that they’d been attached to the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. I also had a flash back to a truly unpleasant nail infection in my teens that required lancing followed by a course of antibiotics.

What I said was: “It’s fabulous. Green! My favourite colour.” (At least the second part of that sentence was true).

“I knew you’d love it,” she replied. “That’s why I’ve managed to get you one, too - as an early Christmas present.”

She slipped a little black and gold package across the table to me and beamed.

I’m just alerting fashion lovers among you to the fact that a pristine bottle of Chanel’s Jade will be appearing on eBay any day soon now – and that there are just 48 shopping days to Christmas.