On the 10th day of #blogmas my tweetdeck gave to me…

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled into a blogger chat session over on Twitter on the subject of #blogmas. 

In case you’re unfamiliar with the idea, the 1st of December rolls around and blogosphere 18-30 becomes like a virtual advent calendar. But instead of doors you get bloglinks, and instead of postage stamp chocolates and tinsel jokes you get Christmas-themed bumper shopping hauls, gift guides (for every member of the family including your cousin’s best friend’s hamster), wishlists, stocking fillers, top ten red lipsticks, festive frocks, January Sale strategies… one a day all the way to December 25th. And well, the whole thing leaves me feeling as iffy as last Saturday’s left over Chinese Takeaway (and we all know what happens when you decide to swallow that rubbish…).  

Alright look, I’m not trying to be the one sour brussel sprout amongst a load of juicy pigs in blankets and glistening cranberry jam (Don’t go shouting it, but I actually really love those gut-crunching green bombs…) – I love a wishlist just as much as the next blogger. And I’m always up for a nose through someone’s fresh out of the bag shopping hauls, or glossy a red lip-off (even though I’m in a monogamous marriage with MAC Lady Danger)… Until those are the only things on the #blogmas menu, that is.

We’re barely ten days in and I’ve already seen enough posts on Gingerbread Houses to make a small development. Enough “Winter Lip Picks” in plum and wine that if stacked on end they’d stretch to the North Pole and back (my lips are so chapped right now there’s no hope of me pulling off a plump pout anyhow…). And I’ve seen enough gift guides and shopping hauls to make me hurl my phone across the room and scream “blah hum blog!”  

Fear not, this isn’t another holier than thou “there’s more to Christmas than just presents” post. But it is a “there’s more to #blogmas than just gift guides” post. If #blogmas means 25 days of only that, then I’d rather stay out of it.

I’m not saying we take a pre-Christmas diet and ban guides, hauls and cookies altogether (God no…). We’re all guilty of a bit of seasonal spam, and it’s great in small doses! I’m just saying that there’s so much more to talk about around this time of year. For a lot of people, Christmas is a really difficult time. I don’t think top of their reading list right now is a poke around some blogger’s Christmas Candle Collection! We can be better than that, surely?

Kudos to the bloggers who work hard this time of year to create a #blogmas full of unique Christmas-themed posts.