I HATE THIS TIME OF YEAR

Have I got Christmas music for you?

Please don't get me wrong. (I ask that a little too often - I must say a lot of random stuff) It's not Christmas I hate. I love eating bad food. I love spending time with family and friends. I love being allowed to drink on week nights. 

I love, love, LOVE not getting up at 3 in the morning. God I love that. I love that so much.

What I don't love is the week before.

I would like to miss out the week before. If I could get the Grinch to steal the week before Christmas, I would. The week before makes me feel like Superman... after a long stay in a kryptonite cell.

I'm not looking for sympathy - I'm sure it's the same for everyone. The rushing around. The getting everything organised for whoever's standing in for you at work while you're away. The search for the present that was supposed to be so easy to find but has ended up being the last one in the country so the quest to locate it, purchase it and actually get it delivered on time has become an impossible mission even Ethan Hunt would think twice about accepting.

Who could be bothered feeling sorry for me anyway? You're exhausted too, right? Your back is killing you just as much as mine. Your kids have already started whining, "I'm bored. What can I do?" and they've only been off school 3 days. Basically what I'm doing here is moaning too. Just because I can.

I think the thing that makes this week so excruciating is the promise of relief. Never is your headache more intense than during the minutes you're waiting for the Nurofen to kick in. This week is no different - because the break is just days away makes those days the hardest you've had to endure all year.

Every Christmas song I play on the Mike Hosking Breakfast is a stinging reminder it isn't Christmas yet at all. Every Christmas special I hear advertised on air is like the ticking on the time-bomb that is my Christmas shopping crusade.

Too much to do, not enough time, it's the same every year and I hate it.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'm taking next December off, the whole month. And I'm REALLY taking it off. I'm going to find a helpful anaesthetist to put me in a voluntary coma. They can bring me round Christmas Eve and I'll be refreshed, relaxed and blissfully unaware. And bloody starving probably - perfectly placed to get the most out of the happiest time of the year.

The only thing that could possibly make that scenario any more dream-like would be if Santa brought me a new smart phone to play with... but which to choose? A Lumia 920 or a Galaxy SIII? Now there's a stressful decision to make. I think I could handle that one though.

Yum! They both look so delicious! How's a boy to choose?