Samantha Armytage: ‘I don’t care what people think of me’
Sunrise co-host Samantha Armytage reveals how this festive season has seen her come to a realisation: that she is no longer worried by people judging her.
Stellar
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There are two types of people in this world. The type who put up their Christmas tree in November. And the people who are wrong.
Midway through last month I couldn’t wait any longer. I put on some Michael Bublé, poured myself an afternoon glass of champagne (or three), dragged out the dusty boxes burgeoning with decorations from under the stairs and took great delight in putting up my 2019 tree.
And just as I suspected, I was mercilessly mocked for it. Not just for the Bublé or the day-drinking. But my premature Christmas excitement.
Most people put up the decorations in December. Tradition dictates the tree should go up 12 days before Christmas and come down 12 days after.
But I’m not most people. And I think most people these days would agree, they’re not most people either.
You see, I’ve discovered the meaning of life and I’m now on the verge of greatness. Because I really don’t care what people think of me anymore.
I knew I’d be judged for my festive fetish. And for the first time ever, this year it didn’t actually bother me. I admit, in the past I have hidden some of my more eccentric (read: daggy) qualities from friends and colleagues.
These include my devotion to a radio station entitled Classic Hits and Memories. My love of interpretive dance. My deep, unwavering adoration of Tom Burlinson, in any horse-related movie he made in the 1980s.
And the fact that, despite having very good taste, at Christmas time I waste a small fortune on kitschy items including (but not limited to) chip and dip plates in the shape of reindeer heads.
But it’s time to let my freak flag fly. Because it’s 2019 and megalomaniacs and narcissists rule the planet.
Girls are becoming boys and boys are becoming girls. And we’ve got no water and we can’t afford electricity.
Children don’t know how to play anymore and no-one can sleep because we’re all so stressed from reading banal stuff on social media all night.
Everything is topsy-turvy right now. So I asked myself, “What sort of person in this cray-cray world could possibly judge me for putting up the Christmas tree a month early?”
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As it turns out, the unfortunate answer is: lots.
There was an episode of The Simpsons called ‘Bart’s Inner Child’. Everyone in Springfield starts to act like Bart and the town holds a Do What You Feel festival, which predictably ends in a riot.
Like me with my plastic November tree, rebellion felt good for a while. But then when everyone does it, it just turns into all-out anarchy.
The lesson from the episode is that no-one can remember how it all started, but that everyone is fine as they are. And then they go back to watching television.
And like me with my plastic tree, no-one can quite remember how it all started, and the Bublé and the day-drinking are a blur, and may have descended into a riot, but the tree is splendiferous and the lesson is the same.
Do what you feel. And if it makes you happy to extend the excitement of the season, do it. Hell, eat a hot-cross bun while you’re at it.
I’ll see you in February, when I’m taking down my tree. Merry Christmas!
Samantha co-hosts Sunrise, 5.30am weekdays, on the Seven Network.