Thank you for the Days

Image: Save the Children

Happy National Pigs in Blankets Day! How many have you eaten? I’ve had eight. It would have been more, but I misunderstood the title and spent half the day trying to get a quilt to stay on a British Saddleback.

It’s actually the UK’s first ever Pigs in Blankets Day, and this I know because along with half the other sarky journalists on Twitter, I’ve had a press release about it. I’ve also learned that in Scotland they’re known as ‘kilted sausages’, and in America they’re wrapped in dough instead - a rare example of us being ahead of our Stateside cousins when it comes to putting bacon on stuff.

Some might say there are too many official days now, that the calendar is drowning in half-baked marketing exercises dreamt up by Tedious, Predictable & Twee PR Ltd. But to them I say, never! For what is a National Something Day if not a reason to make merry, wear something novel and exceed your recommended daily calorie intake?

Tomorrow, if you didn’t know already, is Christmas Jumper Day. Which makes this Christmas Jumper Eve, the day when all the children across the land iron their non-scratchy undershirts in the hope that the magical flying knitting needles will bring them a creation high in warmth, colour AND kitsch.

In recent years it has been adopted by Save the Children UK as a fundraiser – donate £1, go to work wearing something Cliff Richard might reject as a tad too ritzy, and help “make the world better with a sweater”. I’ll be taking part, mainly for the good cause but also because it’s our office Christmas party tomorrow too, and spending the day wrapped in Primark woollies can only serve to make me look better by comparison come evening time.

I’ve been fond of supremely tacky Christmas sweaters ever since the year I unearthed Ol’ Faithful in an antiques shop in Lewes, covered in shiny beads and sequins and authentic 80s dust. It comes down past my bum, meaning it can double as a sort of jolly disco nightshirt when the heating won’t suffice.

This year my boyfriend and I have taken things to the next level, paying the ultimate tribute to our jumpers by wearing them for a photo, turning it into a Christmas card and sending it to all our relatives.

“Does it look enough like a joke?” I asked, as he Photoshopped a border of snow-capped holly round the edge. “I don’t want people to think we’re doing it seriously. I don’t want to be like Ross and Mona in that episode of Friends.”

“People will know we’re joking,” he said, with a look in his eyes that said we weren’t actually joking at all.