Can you hear those sleighbells?
Yep, it's official.
I'm a nutcase.
Sure, you already knew that, but I can now offer you an extra bit of proof. You see, lately, all I can think about is Christmas.
Yes, yes, I know, we're barely out of August. Maybe it's that we haven't had that much of a summer. Maybe it's that I just preordered Nigella's new festive cookbook. Maybe it's that my new face cream smells vaguely of cinnamon (actually, it's making me kind of hungry...)
But you all know the main reason.
Yep.
THERE ARE ONLY 15 WEEKS LEFT TO LOSE WEIGHT!!!
I adore the build-up to Christmas. Well, let's face it, it's three quarters of the fun. And, for me, the build-up starts not with shopping for gifts, not with making a card list or baking my Christmas cake, but with the Traditional Annual Pre-Christmas Diet Extravaganza.
It comes around about this time every year. And I honestly enjoy it. Sure, sure, it's repetitive, painful, protracted (rather like some of my blogs 
).
But at the same time it's somehow so comfortable, so nostalgic. Like wriggling into a well-loved sweater (only more exciting, because come on, this is Christmas! And vaguely linked to clothes shopping, parties etc.).
Eeek! I am getting excited just thinking about it. Because this, ladies and gents, is going to be The Year (even though I say this every year, and am always disappointed, I still believe this. Humour me.)
This year will be the year it is all perfect. Holiday Dreams. In no particular order, this is what's on my Christmas List for 2008 - thin, sleighbells, carols, glorious hair, thin, snow, church, delicious food, stars, Santa, thin, reindeer, new clothes, lights, mistletoe snogging, family, mulled wine, parties, thin.
We'd all put different things on our list. Perhaps you're more into church, less into family, or all about the mulled wine. Many of you probably don't want snow as much as I am praying for it (I'm cursed (blessed?) with a mild coastal climate).
But there's one thing that'd be on all our lists. We all want to be slim for Christmas.
Why does weight assume an extra importance for so many of us during the holidays?
There are many reasons behind it, I'm sure. It's just none of them are very good.
But let's go with it anyway.
In the next couple of weeks, I expect many of us will be coming home with a special sheet from our slimming club. You know the type of thing. At the top, it'll say something like 'Be a Christmas Star!'. Then underneath there'll be a picture of said star, divided into segments, one for each week until Christmas.
Every week, you get to colour in a segment as you lose weight.
There are variations on the theme - cracker (slogan obvious here), scarf ('Be a Christmas Scarf!'?), Santa ('Look Like Him!'), but the principle's the same.
Simply colour those segments and hey presto! You'll look like a goddess by Christmas Eve, just in time to stuff your face.
Easy!
Or is it?
I've carried home one of those blummin bits of paper every autumn for years now, so how come I haven't had a skinny Christmas since I was 22?
Because, when I say I enjoy the Pre-Christmas Diet, I only mean for the first two hours.
Yep, strip away all the glitter, the tinsel and lights and it's just the same old boring diet I've been trying to do since January. A diet which, basically, doesn't work because it's not as fun as a bacon sarnie.
Except now it's even worse! Now there is the added stress of a deadline for which it is IMPERATIVE I lose four pounds a week 
. It's enough to send me right for the eggnog and candy canes (it's not too early, they've been in the shops since August).
So often a quick fix for a long-term problem. As exemplified by the fact I wrote a much-more-excited-than-this Pre-Christmas blog about this time last year (I'd link it, but again, I have issues with technology). At that time, I was 15 pounds lighter than I am now. Wow, how depressing is that?
Anyway, it's so much buildup all for one little day, after which there's nothing much to do but join the queues outside the slimming clubs on January 2nd (not the 1st, I'll be in bed).
It all seems so pointless.
In fact, it almost makes me think...this year I could do with a different approach.
Perhaps I'll forget the deadlines and the gimmicks and concentrate on living in the present. Making healthy choices as I go along, and just seeing where I'm at by December.
But then, I'm not Scrooge. And I'm certainly a sucker for a gimmick. And heck, I can't help it! I'm just too excited!
Anyone got a gold pen and some glitter?
Love Rach xxx 