Here I am with a cutout of HM The Queen at an airport shop in the UK which sells UK theme souvenirs. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
Problems
Where am I going for Christmas and New Year's Eve? What do I need to start buying now?
Answers
An advent calendar for children has a window which opens every day (or sliding date panel) to show how near you are to Christmas Day.
For Christmas Day you either book
a meal out or
a whole day
or holiday away in a hotel
or seasonal goods to decorate your home or office, shop or business.
The same goes for New Year, minus Christmas decorations.
Some people (Singapore shopping malls) remove all decorations the day after Christmas and prepare for the next holiday, New Year.
The twelve days of Christmas, you may recall from one of the Christmas carols you hear on the radio in hairdresser and in recordings in restaurants and shops.
Christmas Stories
I used to hear carols in the streets in Singapore .- I think they are broadcast from lamp posts or the fronts of department stores to get shoppers in the mood for buying gifts and festive meals.
Previous Last-Minute Panics:
1 We need to print a Christmas menu.
2 We need a Santa outfit for a club Xmas party. Who has last year's in the loft? Can we order another online? How long will it take? Do I want to pay for next day delivery?
3 Oops - Christmas cards posted to UK from overseas, France, Spain and Singapore. I must reciprocate - have I missed the last postal date? France is OK. But I've missed Singapore deadline. I need a card which does not mention Christmas, just New Year, or maybe Chinese New Year. Can I print one?
4 The neighbours have brought their children and grandchildren to the Boxing Day drinks. We need non-alcoholic drinks and extra presents. Plus the names of children (how do you spell their names) to add to the greetings cards and gift tags.
5 We are invited to a Boxing Day tea. We need to find and wrap a box of chocolates and all the shops are closed.
6 We are sending out thank you notes and have forgotten who gave us which presents.
7 We saved a whole bag of wrapping paper from last year but can't find it.
8 I have wrapped up two presents of books for a boy and a girl and now I want to add the gift tags I can't remember which gift is which.
9 Christmas decorations from last year are not in the card box. The folding tree was too big. Where is it?
Christmas Crackers
In the UK Christmas crackers are placed on tables.
You can buy Christmas crackers and wrapping paper cheaply after Christmas and store in a bag marked Christmas for next year.
Christmas cracker photos by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.
You might also want to buy a Christmas outfit. If you have a Santa visiting, you need a male or female Santa costume or both.
You can also buy head-dress such as antlers. Other personal adornments include badges, tee-shirts with messages, hats with messages, ear-rings, necklaces.
For venues where you want people of all faiths and none to feel included, you might have decorations and even trees instead of red and green in blue, gold and silver.
You need to stock up on Christmas cards and post them early to overseas destinations. Or look for festive edges to emails.
Your club party might require:
Room decorations;
table decorations;
a festive cloth with symbols, or a runner
hats;
crackers,
festive foods such as Christmas pudding, mince pies, or Panettone (Italy, Venezuela) which you can buy in UK supermarkets, German stollen
Champagne
a TV and seats to watch the Queen's speech
a menu printed with festive symbols
candles such as red with glitter
a postbox for Christmas cards for club members to give each other
blank Christmas cards to reciprocate when other people unexpectedly save postage by handing you cards at events
a large bag for distributing gifts and decorations and / or or bringing them home
Champagne or sparkling wine and non-alcoholic alternative such as soda water.
I bought Christmas brooches a previous year which flash on and off when you press a button. I put them away and forgot them. I find them again in Spring.
Problems - New Year Transport
We planned to leave our restaurant in central London near Piccadilly at 12.15 on New Year's eve after watching the free fireworks overhead. However, several thousand other people had the same idea. and converged on nearby stations to go home.
The area was so jam-packed with people we were afraid of being crushed or losing each other.
The stations were full and police had ropes and snake lines to the exits and entrances - with different areas for in and out to prevent people colliding. We joined a line but after ten minutes had made only small progress. We were still twenty minutes away from even entering the station. We could see more delays were made with barriers to control flow onto escalators and platforms below, with at the entrance to the escalators.
All Night Options
We went back to our restaurant, which was staying open most of the night. We had thought it was crazy. But now we were glad of it. We realised we would have to waste time and money ordering more drinks, having already abandoned the last of our unfinished food and wine.
Luckily the bar tenders and other guests had more than enough leftovers and simply shared what they had. First the bar staff offered us a plate of free nuts and another free drink from bottles left over from the 'drink included' at midnight.
Then, after we stopped to tell the next table about the busy and blocked stations and warn them to wait. They invited us to sit down and join their table, and share their nibbles, so that solved our problem. Also we made more friends.
Solutions:
1 Email yourself a list of what is stored where. Put Christmas in the Subject.
Group together in a mail box called Xmas all the hotels and other offers you chucked out because you thought they had emailed ridiculously early, mostly at prices you would not be prepared to pay.
2 Email yourself notes on where you stored your Xmas decorations and gifts.
3 Wrap gifts with easy to remove wrapping paper, folded and tied with ribbons. Use no sticky tape, or minimal sticky tape. That means less mess from torn paper. You can recycle the wrapping paper. (Or re-wrap gifts for somebody else if you run out of gifts or get duplicate boxes of chocolates.)
4 Send out invitations or announce your intentions to hold a Christmas or New Year's Eve party. Otherwise people will book holidays over the period. Pre-Christmas flights will be booked up early.
In some countries on Christmas Day the shops and restaurants and offices will be shutting at lunch time the day before and closed during Christmas Day - or all week. Taxis will be charing double.
On the other hands, you might find free public transport for New Year's Eve. In some cities in the USA, UK and Europe an occasional pub offers free rides home within a small radius. (It is good PR. It is also good business so that people won't refuse to buy or be bought drinks on the grounds that they are driving.)
Free Transport
Taxi drivers may offer a free service (this started in one city when a taxi drivers's friend or relative was killed by a drunk driver).
either sponsored by the taxi drivers or a philanthropic business to reduce deaths on the road from drunk drivers).
Some airports have shuttle buses which run directly from the hotel to the airport and only take you when you are catching a plane and make a charge.
However, in other areas, shuttle buses do a circuit of the airport hotels and the airport. This brings people from the airpot to the hotels to buy in the hotel shops and buy drinks at the bar and meals in the restaurants, and get to know the hotel for later bookings.
If you have a stopover you can take the free shuttle bus to another hotel if your hotel's restaurant is closed or already full, and another hotel offers special festive meals (or cheaper meals without splurging on an expensive festive meal six times in two days). Or just take the free shuttle for a change of scene and to see more decorations.
Some cities also have free shuttle buses between major malls.
I can remember all the occasions when I thought I had everything planned and had a hiccup. The next year I put that right and another blip. Each year I have one thing more organised. Happy Christmas!
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. See my books on Amazon and Lulu. My books of comic poetry and other subjects are bought as Xmas presents for friends and family who are learning English. Please read my other posts and share links to posts with colleagues.
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