Brexit is knocking the joy out of Christmas preparations

I’ve had my fill.

My brain is tired trying to understand all its nuances. But worse than that, it is distracting me from what is the most important time of the year – Christmas.

I have always loved the run-down to Christmas.

It’s a time when we begin to think of others, and shop for the loved ones around us.

But Brexit has come between me and the festive season making me feel ill towards anyone raising the subject when all I want to be bothered about is what size the turkey should be this year.

Politicians? Do we really care tuppence for them just now? Haven’t we seen and heard enough of them spitting venom over the ‘disaster’ ahead?

Surely Brexit cannot be more important than the children in Yemen, dying daily in a ghastly war which shows no sign of abating, a war which like the one in Syria could go on for years?

In the middle of the Christmas preparations we are faced with many such tragedies. But Brexit is different. It’s a war of bickering, a war destined to open up all our political weaknesses, a war which for the Irish and Northern Irish in particular is alarming in its bitterness and the need to settle old scores.

Brexit is a drawn out battle we could have done without and I for one never imagined it would put a ‘damper’ on Christmas, a time of year when the charitable gene in us is thinking of other things and people. But politicians have hard hearts.

Do they know it’s Christmas and do they care?

At this time each year we have Children in Need, which the UK as a whole continues to generously support.

Going back much further to the 1970s we had Band Aid, an event which really did capture the imagination thanks to the efforts of a pop star Bob Geldof

Yet, despite all our efforts children in many parts of the world continue to endure war and famine and what more can we do about it?

Regularly we put our hands in our purses in response to television and newspaper appeals but still it doesn’t appear to make much of a difference.

Charities target us especially in the run-down to Christmas and I have no problem with that.

In fact giving to charity is part of Christmas. Appeals are what we expect at this time of the year and people give generously.

Our charity shops are full of beautiful festive cards and gifts to buy and many of us contribute in this way.

But Brexit is getting in the way of all the festive spirit which can do so much good for those who need help.

The politics of it all has me sapped, fed up, angry and vowing, at one stage, never to vote for a politician ever again. Did we get our fingers bitten back in the 1970s when we signed up for the Common Market? Did we ever think when we signed then that we would end up being bossed around by a cabal of politicians speaking with foreign accents who dare us to withdraw from the ghastly behemoth they created due to our own politicians not reading the fine print or having the brains to see the problems that might arise in our attempt to extricate ourselves.

Here I am in the midst of wondering what height my Christmas tree should be, distracted by the possibility that Sinn Fein could well be celebrating that their wildest dream of a united Ireland may be that bit closer come December. My mind is also distracted by the worry that the DUP, their reputation as kingmakers long gone, will be outwitted by the English politicians who really don’t give a toss about us and would gladly see us unhooked and driven into the Irish sea leaving them to become little England again.

Soon I will dispatch Himself into the roof space to unearth the Christmas decorations an event I usually celebrate with a glass of my home made sloe gin. But Brexit is well and truly knocking the Christmas spirit out of me.