Grinch Corner

My stepmother used to put the tree up at the beginning of December but not decorate it. The decorations went on after the kids had gone to bed on Christmas Eve. I used to stay with her and my Dad when I was a teenager and their kids were small, and I would help with the decoration - we are often up at 2 or 3 am finishing it because the kids didn't go to bed early at the best of times, let alone Christmas Eve. But it made the morning all the more special for the kids on Christmas day, seeing the tree all lit up for the first time. There were always lots of chocolates and small presents (e.g. pretty necklaces) on the tree too - another good reason for not doing it earlier.

 

Yes, @ClematisDbee, and it is rare to find a Christmas themed fiction book that is not all gooey romantic syrup!

 

We've just been moaning that the Council didn't collected our garden waste bin last Thursday. I was convinced the last collection was then. Checked online - oops, last collection was Nov. 28th, OH is not amused as he will have to go out tomorrow and heave it back over the step under the garden gate.

 

The green bin schedule is hard to keep track of at this time of yr. Mine should be emptied of its load of soggy oak leaves on Tuesday. Then they skip a collection to gather discarded Xmas trees instead, and then it should be green bins again, but the Bank Holidays move the day around.

 

I know exactly when our next green bin collection is - the first Wednesday in March.

Black bin will be a few days late because it falls on Christmas Day (even I don't expect the bin men to work that day!) As usual we'll have a separate bin bag for bulky dry rubbish like non-recyclable wrapping paper, plastic packaging (always seems to be a lot of that over Christmas) and suchlike, that can sit in the shed until the following collection if the bin gets too full.

 

I was wrong, just checked and it's 12th March. 5th is a black bin week.

 

If it was only from November it would be bad enough. One channel started showing C'mas films in about July and my missus watches them every ****ing time they are on.

 

I will be taking a jar to work this week and anyone who says how many days until C’mas will be asked to put a pound in. I haven’t decide what to do with the massive jar of money I collect yet…maybe buy a big Grinch outfit… no that’s actually too C’massy!

 

Home Bargains is well stocked with Grinch outfits. First thing you see as you go in, positioned so you absolutely have to walk past every nausea-inducing-shade-of-green one.

 

Imagine how much worse it would be if they were surrounded by clashing poinsettias.

 

True!

 

I have a visceral dislike of the Christmas Poinsettia craze. Why is everywhere full of gaudily coloured, poisonous Euphorbia pulcherrima.
I admire the skill of the breeders in coming up with so many terrible colours and the abilities of the growers in getting them to flowering at completely the wrong time of year.
The best Poinsettia I saw was a naturalised plant growing in Nepal, happily flowering away at it's natural time of year and growing year after year. Picture taken late October

 

It's a horticultural version of the advent calendar IMO @NigelJ . Let's come up with something that has a vague Christmassy link to it, that we can flog to gullible folk, and make lots of lovely dosh...
Or am I just cynical?

You could probably take a dustbin @AuntyRach. Mind you, if you make it double the price for saying 'how many sleeps?' you could probably manage a couple of weeks abroad in a luxury hotel.
I loathe that phrase.
Bah humbug....

 

Mine always blooms November-March, which obviously covers the Christmas period. Here is is now about 20 years old ...



In order to get it to bloom, it is cut back to one meter tall in June. You should not cut them back after August.

 

I have never liked poinsettias and only learned a few years ago that they're in the euphorbia family which I have always heartily disliked. Explains a lot.