Yule Blog

MERRY CHRISTMAS! MERRY CHRISTMAS! YESSSSSS! Wonderful times! May you have amazing festivities! May glad tidings be brought unto you and your mum. Here's to a hopeful New Year where those who haven't yet found love do so, where great achievements are made in science and in life, the economy will no longer be fucked and there'll be increased prosperity, happiness, love, fertility, music that is free of 'doing it like dudes' and whatever the hell Nikki Minaj is on about, care for one another regardless of race, gender, religion, sexuality and music taste, working together as a world to beat AIDS and cancer..... WOOHOO IT'S CHRISTMAS!

Nah, just kidding. It's probably been, through no one's fault, one of the worst Christmases yet. I know what you're thinking - 'What's with the pessimism Ollie? Snow need to be like that!' Don't worry guys, I'm not saying it was all terrible. This isn't an Eastenders christmas episode! In fact if anything it just shows how awesome my Christmases have been for this one to not be on par with the others. I'll start from the beginning, shall I........

As you can see from my post on the 4th December - 'why I don't care much for Christmas this year', I didn't have high expectations anyway. I wasn't looking forward to coming home due to my boredom with the UK and my love of Erasmus life in Rennes. To reduce myself to using clichés, I was having the time of my life, and I know it will end in May, so I didn't feel like wasting two weeks doing nothing in Wales with my life under the control of my parents.

However, when I arrived home Monday evening, things started off wonderfully. My family were very welcoming, even my brothers with whom I haven't been that close lately. I actually went to the pub with them - I had never done that before, it was crazy! It was like we were friends! The following evening was also lovely, spent with some of my closest friends at Newport. Sometimes you're too busy to miss people, or you're having too much of a good time with one set of people to miss another. I think both were the case with me at Rennes, and I don't mind admitting that! You should enjoy the times with the people you're with, don't pine for those who aren't there! So arriving in Wales was surprisingly enjoyable, and it was lovely to see my family and friends.

But of course, good times don't last. Tuesday night I had to rush home from my friend's house because I felt a little weird. Turned out I spent the whole night in a bucket, emptying the stomach full of mixed grills, chips, chicken, Chinese food and other British cuisine that I had to ingest after three months of baguettes and croissants.

I was disappointed in myself. After the many times in France I felt sick this semester from drinking too much, devouring loads of kebabs or even eating blatantly gone-off chicken, and didn't throw up, my lad of a stomach was finally defeated, by what? Some chicken at Asda? This was stupid! And after being up all night getting rid of what felt like the stomach itself, my Wednesday was written off due to my epic fatigue. No Sherlock Holmes 2 for Ollie. (But apparently Orange Wednesdays is no longer 2 for 1, but the second ticket is half price instead of free. Woop-dee-fucking-doo! Go fuck yourselves, Orange).

Thursday came, and I wasn't feeling brilliant. But I still hadn't bought all my Christmas presents, so I went to Cardiff with a couple of friends and sorted that out. After supposedly throwing up due to some weird chicken on tuesday, what do I go and buy for lunch? Fried chicken. And the Idiot of the Year award goes to.........

Luckily, however, after my first date with the bucket, I didn't call her again. She called me a few times, mostly through the night on Friday and Sunday, but I didn't pick up. So the psycho bitch went for my family instead. First she went with my dad and my youngest brother on the Friday, and then after a gluttinous Christmas dinner, she got both brothers and my mum. Yes, it turned out I had brought home a stomach bug. Merry Christmas family!

So this bastard bug nearly ruined Christmas. It definitely took 2011 way down the league table of my top Christmases. There was no traditional Christmas Eve meal out (we were going to go to our favourite Indian restaurant, so that was definitely out of the question!), Boxing Day was ruined, with all of us too weak to do anything fun (dad and I were up the night before helping those who were ill) and right now we should have been in Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire, seeing our relatives, but we had to pull out of that too.

But I guess the most important thing was that we were all relatively healthy on Christmas Day (up until the night anyway) and so we exchanged presents with the usual glee, and had a delicious Christmas dinner that only my mum can whip up. What did I get from Santa? A lot of chocolate that I won't be able to eat until after Rennes part II is finished, but most importantly, really warm clothes - a super warm coat and fleece, as well as gloves with the latest technology to provide maximum warmth.

Why did I want these so badly? In a couple of weeks I will be in Helsinki, Finland, visiting my friends, as part of the Great European January Adventure. A week today I shall be flying to Rome to start the journey, and I hope to blog as much of it as I can. I am seriously excited! Is it fully-planned? Of course not! I can't even tell you guys exactly where we're going yet, because I don't know the exact dates and places, but I know it will involve more countries in three weeks than the rest of my life put together, and that alone is far more exciting than Christmas could ever be!

But Christmas, despite my lack of excitement, was very enjoyable with the family. We don't spend much time together, so it was really enjoyable to have that day to ourselves. Jake had bought Dad the DVD of Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame (his favourite Disney film. No surprises there, the francophone! I'm not jealous by the way.....)  so we sat and watched that, missing Michael McIntyre's Christmas Comedy Roadshow instead of Strictly Come up-your-arse Dancing. After watching that wonderful film, we put on Aladdin. God how I miss the Disney Renaissance! I was so lucky to grow up with those films rather than the rubbish kids these days have to watch. Disney, quit with the ugly computer animation and bring back the iconic drawings! I mean, come on! You can't beat this!

Anyway, I write this blog update feeling rather blessed. Yes it was a pretty poor Christmas by our usual standards (which just highlights how awesome it usually is) but it was enjoyable nonetheless, and I was with my family, who I hadn't seen in three and a half months, and it was like I had never left. Sure there were moments when they decided to take their frustration out on me for being a lazy bastard and not helping around the house (hmmm....guess they have a point there!) but after resisting the urge to burst out about how I didn't want to be there, it went rather well.

That's family for you. You have your ups and downs. There are times where you want to just hug and not let go, and times where you want to just hug and not let go until you've suffocated them. (Sorry, Gladiator was on the telly last night). But at the end of the day, they're the best thing you have. They will always be there for you, and we can't forget that. Plus, my family in particular are a right laugh. Mum and my brothers all have wit that far surpasses my own, so you can imagine the remarks that fly around and bounce off one another - makes for great banter!

Okay I'm going off point. Basically, I'm extremely fortunate to have such a wonderful family, and to have such great friends in Wales as well as all over the world. This week I need to make sure I spend as much time as possible with the Welsh lot before I depart for the GEJA.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all had what you wanted, and most importantly, had a wonderful (stomach bug free) time with those you love.

Nadolig Llawen pawb! (That's Welsh. Yeah....)


Rant over

Ollie


P.S. Thought I'd add a piece of Christmas TV awesomeness for you. Why did I enjoy it so much? Because my family and I always have fun singing along to this song with bad impressions of Shane McGowan, and I actually had a go myself at it in Rennes before this was recorded (Michelle, you still have the video right?) Anyway here's the version by my favourite comedian Michael Mcintyre. Merry Christmas!