Ahhh Christmas, whether you’re religious or not, most people celebrate the day in some capacity. I for one, LOVE the holidays but when I thought about it, I realised it’s actually pretty much the same day each year. So who can relate to the below things that inevitably happen on Christmas Day every dang year…

1. You’ll be woken by your mum belting Michael Buble’s Christmas album at the top of her lungs. Before 9am while she’s deshelling the prawns.
2. Your mum will round everyone up to go to church. Even though no one is religious so it’s actually probably like, a sin to go really.
3. You’ll open a weird gift from your Aunt Susan / Grandma Nellie and have to pretend you’ve always wanted a yodelling pickle.
4. You’ll end up using the dubious present that you’ve been given, to make your ‘I love it!’ act more convincing, ruining your future chance of re-gifting.
5. You’ll forget a present for someone and they’ll get YOU a present and things will be really awkward around the tree.
6. Your 3yo cousin/niece/nephew hasn’t worked out how to fake liking an unliked present and starts crying because it’s the wrong toy.
7. You’ll get or give a battery operated pressie and there will be no batteries in the entire house, in effect, making the gift useless.
8. Your nan will start folding wrapping paper ‘to keep for next year’.
9. No matter how old you are, your mum will pass you the phone after ‘present time’ so you can thank your relative for *insert dubious gift that you didn’t have to pretend to love, given they weren’t there*. You also then get the ‘what did you get’ query and have to relay your loot for the 12th time.
10. Everyone will eat far too much and end up in a food coma. You’ll then fight your siblings for the couch while mum and dad yell “it’s rude to leave the table” or “help wash the dishes you little bastards” at the top of their voices.
11. Your nan will pull out her annual Christmas pudding she spends weeks preparing only to have no one except her son dutifully reach for a slice. Why? Because you’ve already consumed WAY too much and pudding sucks.
12. All the grown-ups will head inside after lunch for a nap while you sit outside and just get drunk by yourself or at best, with your parent’s dog.
13. Everyone will sit around a table and continue eating and drinking while playing an array of family-friendly games until your uncle gets drunk and raises some inappropriate piece of family history.
14. Your dad will spend hours consulting the council website in an attempt to decipher when ‘the bin men are coming’ and then send you all out to hide rubbish in the neighbour’s bins like a bunch of criminals.
15. You’ll all fall asleep knowing the next few days will be spent in the same fashion. Minus the presents.

Words by Kelly McCarren.