WELL, HERE WE are. Your mam has proclaimed that it’s “all over now for another year” but you’re all still there on the couch, wondering what the hell to do with yourself.
We call this weird, disorientating period connecting Christmas and New Year’s Eve the ‘gooch’ of the year. Not because it has anything to do with Colm Cooper, but because… well, we’ll let Urban Dictionary explain:
Have any of these things happened to you yet? Because we’re here for you if they have.
1. You’ve looked in the Roses tin ten times in 30 minutes, willing more Caramel Barrels to appear. But there are none. They’re long gone.
2. You’re probably desperate enough to eat a Coffee Escape, and that unnerves you.
3. You haven’t known what day it is for quite some time now. But does it even matter?
4. In fact, you feel kind of like Matthew McConaughey in True Detective. Time is a flat circle. You understand that now.
5. You’ve felt rising irritation at a family member and were about to snap until you realised they were just breathing too loud.
6. You were frightened by this new, violent side to you, but only very briefly. Who needs to breathe that loudly? Darth Vader, maybe. Not your IDIOT brother.
7. You haven’t put on a pair of proper trousers in a couple of days and you can’t remember what it must feel like to be restricted in that way.
8. You’ve contemplated only wearing things with elasticated waists from here on in.
9. Over the past few days, you’ve eaten a turkey dinner, turkey sandwiches, turkey curry, and turkey and ham vol-au-vents. Surely there’s no more turkey left?
10. But no, there’s your mam consulting Neven Maguire about what else can be done with the rest of the damned bird. Turkey pie it is!
11. You’re constantly grazing. Pringles, bits of cold ham, the biscuits everyone ignores in the Afternoon Tea tin. You’ll consume it all.
12. And you always seem to be in that weird state between drunk and hungover. Even if you don’t drink. It’s just the default feeling of this period.
13. You vaguely remember thinking you were going to get stuff done in this time, like going on hikes and reading books and finally meeting all those people for coffee.
14. …But isn’t that stuff people do for New Year’s resolutions in January? You couldn’t do it now. It’s not appropriate.
15. The alternative, however, is being wheeled out on visits to relatives and family friends where you’ll be made talk about how ‘things’ are ‘going’.
16. So you’re willing to do your penance here on the couch, watching Judge Rinder and lower-tier festive films like Christmas with the Kranks.
17. But you know deep down that this is all, of course, the true meaning of Christmas. Happy Gooch Week, one and all!
