Glitter is good, drab is bad!

People (including The Hubby) take the piss out of me because I like glitter. For me, the more the better.

I can't help it. I'm drawn like a magpie to things that sparkle and shine and because of that, Christmas is a wonderful time. I love the fact that not only can I deck out my house with an inordinate number of sparkling lights, tinsel and shiny streamers, but it becomes socially acceptable to wear large amounts of glitter as well.

The world is a drab place by and large, and a little bit of glitter makes me feel better. A large amount, even more so. I know if we had it all the time it would become commonplace and therefore not be so uplifting, but it's a pretty harmless thing to love and definitely, for me, makes the world a nicer place.

I've never been a minimalist in anything I do. If you're going to do something, you might as well really go for it. Therefore when I decorate my house at Christmas, not for me the tasteful string of beads and homespun looking tree decorations make of old bits of sack and gingham cloth, so beloved (I assume) by the earth mother NCT brigade. My tree has enough silver tinsel, and so many baubles and glittery snowflakes on it that it makes you feel frosty cold, and the light reflects and dances round the room where the coloured fairy lights catch them.

The dining room is festooned with shiny streamers (this year, to my delight, I found an old stack of unopened ones we bought from Woolworths several years ago and then never used, in gold and bronze foil), a second tree and a fibre optic twig tree that twinkles at you in a rainbow of colours. It's all staggeringly bad taste, and I love it.

Perhaps because of my overboard approach, my daughters sadly don't much go in for ornament at all, although they will wear a bit of sparkly eye shadow on occasion when they go clubbing. I have seven different shades of glitter eye shadow in my make up box, glitter eye liner and two or three different glittery nail varnishes. Originally I bought them for doing shows, but I like them so much they have migrated to my day to day make up box and I use them when we go out to dinner.

I think the world would be a much better place if we all adopted this approach, and in fact if I were in charge I'd love to pass a law about it and make it compulsory. so vote for me, the Glitter Party, if you want the world to be shinier and happier!