‘Tis the Season To Be Hinting

This is my fifth Christmas as a tea blogger, and I must say, I’ve done an awful lot of work on your behalf to make Christmas better.

Over the years I’ve published bad Christmas Poetry time and time again, shared my long lost childhood letters to Father Christmas. My Steps To A Tea Spangled Christmas is of course a modern literary classic, and my Ultimate tea Poem should be in every tea shop at Christmas.

But this year, it’s all about you.

Dear reader, I know that Christmas can sometimes yield disappointment.

And I’m not just talking about the standard disappointments of Christmas: The animal behaviour of shoppers, the unbearable smugness of various relatives, the badly cooked meals with – shudder – instant gravy and instant custard, the forlorn idiots here in Australia that say “It’s too hot for a traditional Christmas meal, let’s have prawns and salad instead.”

No, I’m talking about the burning, white hot disappointment of not getting tea for Christmas. Let’s face it, it’s tantamount to a suppression of your human rights.

So, what can you do? You can hint!

I know that most of us are too selfless, too giving, just too damn nice to hint. But consider this: what if you don’t? How bad are your nearest and dearest going to feel when they see you desperately trying to hide your tears at getting a beret and a polo shirt from an Aunt who you know damn well lives near a great tea shop. Or to pretend to your children that framed copies of their kindergarten art are the best present ever, when you just want to weep at the lost opportunity for oolong.

Luckily for you, I have come up with a plan. Let’s hint.

Hinting Step 1: The Pre-Christmas Catch-Up

It’s simple to arrange to meet EVERY relative and friend in a local tea shop, one at a time, and spend half an hour listening to the latest prattle from their boring, empty lives. Then say ” I love this shop. Everybody who really loves me buys me gifts from here.”

If you think they might be a lousy tea picker, throw in “And they even do gift vouchers”.

Hinting Step 2: The Office

If you are in management position, there’s no doubt you have a raft of fawning toadies who want to curry favour. Meet with each of them about some vague plan to promote them in the coming months, and into each conversation insert “The problem here at Christmas is that the other fawning toadies will gift me a dodgy tie, handkerchief set or Rolex, when all I actually want is some Doke Silver Needle. ” Make sure you hint about the more expensive teas to the more well-paid members of your team, you don’t want 10 grams of an organic Darjeeling and a kilo of some two dollar green tea from Ecuador you’ve decided to try on a whim.

Also, don’t forget to tell the story of the guy who lost his job ten minutes after gifting you some dingy sencha due to a ‘restructure” at every meeting leading up to Christmas.

If you are not the boss, tell him/her/their royal highness about the time you worked for three days straight due the the power of an excellent Darjeeling. That should do it. In fact, everyone might get tea.

Hinting Step 3: The Christmas Tea Gift register

This is really simple. You create a list of teas you want, along with where to buy them and the cost, and forward it to your nearest and dearest.

In your explanatory notes, explain that you are providing this wonderful service for them, because quite frankly, people who don’t know a Golden Monkey from a Golden Needle are liable to go off-piste.

It is only because you are kind and generous that you are helping them to overcome their feckless, pathetic low-tea ways.

Hinting Step 4: Tea Shirts

From November onwards, start wearing custom-made tea shirts. Have slogans embroidered such as “All I Want For Christmas Is Tea”, “I Love Getting Tea For Christmas” and “Christmas is All About Tea, Where’s Mine?”

You could go a little more aggressive, this year I’m going with “The Loose Leaf Tea You Gift Me Will Bring Us Closer Together, But Teab*gs Will Be Shoved Up Your Backside” to avoid a common mistake.

Hinting Step 5: Scrabble

Challenge all your friends to games of Scrabble, and make sure you play the following words from The Devotea’s Official Scrabble Tea Expansion Word List. They are words you will have to explain to your friends:

• Theolence: A violent reaction to not getting tea for Christmas
• Literatusry: Hoping for the tea mentioned in Geoff Norman’s latest review to be in your Christmas Stocking
• Timbalance: Where when gift giving, one person provides a kilo of Lord Petersham and the recipient only gives a pack of cheap teab*gs in return
• XaJaKaQ: The bitter tears of the person who does not get tea for Christmas

Hinting Step 6: While Watching Movies and TV

You can just make funny remarks during Movies and TV. When Arnie says “I’ll Be Back” just add “..after I go and buy some tea for the people I love for Christmas!” in the accent. People will fall about laughing.

When your local TV station inevitably screens Miracle on 34th Street, wait for the bit where Kris Kringle says “Some children wish for things they couldn’t possibly use like real locomotives or B-29s.” and throw in “..instead of sensible presents like a nice pu-erh”

If this causes you any trouble – for example, if you are ejected from your local cinema – shout loudly that “Tea at Christmas is a basic human right, you coffee-swilling fascist.” and throw in “Don’t you oppress me” to get all the Monty Python fans on-side.

Hinting Step 7: Christmas Cards

Send out traditional Christmas cards, but get them custom made so there is a teapot on the front with some tinsel.

Make up some short, pithy and pointed poems for the interior:

I’m glad I have a friend like you,

You mean the world to me.

I wish you a Merry Christmas…

…Assuming you’ve bought me tea

Make sure you send them out early enough that corrective action can be taken. There’s nothing worse than hearing “I should have bought you some tea, but I’d already purchased the towel and matching bath mat when I thought of it.”

Hinting step 8: The Rich, Senile Relative

Oh, this one’s easy. Just nip around to their house, make them tea and biscuits, hint for tea and assume their permission to place a large order with The Devotea USA or The Devotea Australia on their credit card. The bonus here is that they’ll probably forget, and you’ll also end up with a box of shortbread. Nice.

Following these eight simple steps should ensure the perfect Christmas. After you do all this, quite frankly, if those people closest to you fail to stump up the requisite tea, then you have about eleven months to get new people.

Merry Christmas, and may your stocking be tea-packed.