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Hope y'all had a great Christmas and are full of peas and good wine. Today is the last day of 2007 and probably for many people the last day of overindulging, bulging etc. for a while.

Unfortunately down here in the complaints department there's not a lot to do. The boss gave the rest of the office a day off but insisted I stay here in case one of our customers should need help or feel the need to complain. It could be worse I suppose, he did give me tomorrow off and a bottle of excellent Prosecco (which I bet he got for Christmas!)

So here I am in the bowels of the office trying to stir up a little atmosphere watching New Year celebrations around the world, drinking and eating some Christmas cake with the office cat Sylvester and a greyhound I found in the operations department.

All thats left for me to do is to wish y'all a very happy, peaceful and satisfying New Year.

Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas everybody! The big dude with the white hair and beard and the particularly loud red and white outfit with that comical flaccid tassled hat is back.

Funny thing is years ago he used to be a lot less obvious. There was a time when kids had to sleep with one eye open on Christmas Eve just to catch a glimpse of him. Sometimes of course, and presumably at enormous expense he came to large department stores in big towns. Parents and kids would make that magical trip just to see him.

These days Santa is on every street corner from the end of November. Sometimes he's in flying form, other times he's grumpy, sometimes he looks like he hasn't slept for days. Sometimes he wears glasses, sometimes not (maybe contacts?). The guy is simply run ragged.

How does he do it? Thats's easy I told my son, he's Santa! Why he can even get down the chimney, carrying a big sack of toys. I bet he could even throw a tractor over a hedge!

With this in mind perhaps you want to show the little ones in your life what Santa used to look like when we had to use our imagination to see him. Check out this version of Santa Claus is coming to town accompanied by some classic images of Nick Claus himself. This will banish the image of that street corner, bleary eyed imposter forever, and, how could you not tremble at the wishbone, listening to the sublime Karen Carpenter. Or have I had one sherry too many...?

Heartiest Christmas greetings from the complaints department at Applegreen, in fact I think I can take it on myself to wish you a wonderful Christmas from all at Applegreen and all the very best for the New Year.

Applegreen would like to wish all you Christmas party goers an uplifting and down home time over the next few days of festive frivolity. Remember to leave the car at home and above all don't drink and dress!

pic. LA Times

I've often thought that maybe we tend to be a little over the top with regulations of one sort or another. So for just a few seconds I almost believed this piece which appeared recently on one of my favourite and most informative sites.

Stop press! Just in, the news that Applegreen won the award for Best New Convenience Store Format at the Shelflife magazine awards in the Burlington Hotel on Wednesday 5th of December.

Congratulations to the Applegreen team, head office and sites.

Down here in the complaints department it takes a while before the good news filters in, feel free to contact me if you want you want to take me out for a celebratory drink! Wonder if they have an award for the best complaints department?

I was talking to two ladies in the Applegreen canteen yesterday and they told me they were heading to Germany to the Christmas Markets. Every German town has a Weihnachtsmarkt.

The market is like a little town square within the town square, made up of decorated and seasonally lit wooden houses. Generally they are manned by artisans selling everything from paintings, photographs, wooden toys, all forms of Christmas decorations for the house and tree, ceramics, pottery of all sorts, clothes, you name it they sell it. It's generally handmade and a little less factory-like than what's available in department stores.

However the best thing about Christmas markets is the atmosphere and the food. It's like walking into a different world. Like stepping back into a time when people had time to spare. Locals head there after work and hang out drinking gluehwein (mulled wine)and eating meter-long sausages and pork steaks, crepes or kartoffelpuffer (potato cakes). Choirs sing and for the kids there's always the carousel.

For the three weeks before Christmas the market provides a real alternative to the consumerism that prevails in the shopping areas and is a hell of a lot cheaper.

I told the girlfriend that instead of wasting money on a present this Christmas I intended to spend more time with her, funny thing is I haven't been able to contact her since.