A little bit closer to getting into the Christmas spirit ... or?

I am desperately trying to get into some sort of Christmas spirit! With all the usual signs - you know, the markets, the lights, the cold, the short days, the julbord, the glögg, the Christmas concerts everywhere, the announcement of this years Christmas gift (!), etc - virtually absent, I find it a challenge. In addition, the sun is shining and it is 26 degrees, well, at least in the afternoons.

Today I took off together with some fellow Nestlé partners to visit the much talked about Aman's Christmas Collection in Noida. Noida, you ask? Yes, well, sort of an appendix to Delhi in the east with the Yamuna river as the only visible indicator of having crossed to another city - and indeed to another state, Uttar Pradesh, or UP for the initiated :-)

This fellow greeted us at the door - ok, maybe a start ...

Inside ... well, it is an export company that is open for sale only a few weeks per year, and only when it is too late to export Christmas decorations. Everything was covered in a rather substantial layer of dust!

The collection ranges from "quite nice" to "you must be kidding me!" Sorting through stars, ribbon, gift bags, stockings, wreaths, birds, butterflies and ... yes ... the much loved traditional Christmas elephants was a little surreal and very dirty! 

Above a whole wall full of Christmas balls.

These lovely heads sticking out of the wall ... gave me the creeps to be honest :-) I just could not help but thinking about their potentially painful death, then the beheading ... well, a gruesome story.

Nevertheless, we left the facilities with no less than 3 full shopping bags! Did we not have enough Christmas decorations already? Will we spend Christmas at home in Gurgaon anyway? DON'T ASK, please.

I think the bottom line has to be ... tiring!