Sharon Mannion’s Guide To Surviving Christmas

Ahead of her Whale show on Friday, December 20th, the star of Sharon Mannion’s Christmas Crackers offers up some tips on making it through the silly season.

Here we go again on the Christmas merry-go-round. So, here’s Sharon Mannion’s top tips for surviving the season.

Hold Your (Budweiser) Horses
There’s nothing worse than eagerly anticipating something only for that something to turn out to be something fairly rubbish after all. Remember the Covid cycle anyone?

Looking forward to the weekends only to find out the weekends were also quite shit and you were back to square one, foolishly looking forward to Monday in the hope that something better would come then. Ah memories.

Christmas should be enjoyed at Christmas time only.

Putting the decorations up in mid-October serves no-one. It’s nothing more than a mass act of hysteria we indulge in, desperate as we are to try and ignore the horrors of the world around us. I mean, I get it, and sure look, if it worked, I’d be the first one wrapping meslelf in tinsel in July. It doesn’t though. Best to dive into the season on Christmas Eve and re-emerge New Years Day having successfully grabbed teeny amounts of craic whenever you could find them.

Vouchers For The Win
Anyone who has ever bought an Irish man a Christmas present knows only too well the underwhelming nature with which it is generally received. Socks, aftershave, a Lamborghini, it doesn’t matter, they’ll all be greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and a ‘Uh, thanks’.

I bought my husband a Mac once. A Mac! The flippin’ thing cost me €1,200. He opened it on Christmas morning, did the obligatory ‘Uh, thanks’, and continued to use his broken-down Lenovo for a further 10 months. It took a while for him to get round to ‘setting it up’ apparently.

Never again.

These days I’m firmly on the vouchers train. Let him go disappoint himself in the January sales and leave me out of it.

Cr-y-ying
Christmas can be tough for a myriad of often very valid reasons. Even if you’re not dealing with something specific, the opening bars of Fairlytale of New York is enough to elicit a tear from the stoniest of hearts. ‘It was Christmas Eve, babe…’

Aargh, not now Shane, I’m in Tesco!

If you’re not feeling it, the sight of everyone else very much ‘feeling it’ can be hard to take. But if it’s any comfort, half those people probably aren’t really ‘feeling it’ anyway. It’s all a bit of a charade. Like when everyone pretended they loved Fontaines DC, but some people couldn’t pick them out of a line up. (Not me, of course. I’ve been a fan since their Joshua Tree days.)

Basically, cry when you need to, have another mince pie when you need to, and try not to let the bastards get you down. (The bastards being Fontaines DC, of course…).

You’re Doing What Now!?
People are different. They all grew up in different households and every family has their own traditions and way of celebrating the season that should be respected.

It’s just unfortunate that any traditions that don’t tie into what I grew up with are WRONG.

⦿ Presents must be open first thing, before breakfast. Dressing optional.
⦿ There must be 11 packets of dream topping in the house at any one time.
⦿ Leaving the house on Christmas Day is not permitted.
⦿ Rudolph doesn’t eat parsnips.

I won’t be taking any further questions.

Sharon Mannion’s Christmas Cracker
The only true way to survive the season is to get yourself along to Sharon Mannion’s Christmas Cracker in the Whale Theatre, Greystones on December 20th! A night of comedy, craic and Christmas cheer that will meet you where you are and get your festive juices bubbling like a bitta gravy on a turkey leg. We’ve even added special guests Joe Rooney and Danny Kehoe, with more to be announced soon.

Guaranteed to get you in the yuletide spirit or your money back.*

*This is not true on any level.

You can catch Sharon Mannion’s Christmas Crackers at The Whale on Friday, December 20th – tickets here: https://whaletheatre.ticketsolve.com/ticketbooth/shows/873648873