Hello.

It is me. The dog.

I would like to formally lodge a complaint about Christmas.

You think it is magical.

I think it is a sudden environmental collapse that happens overnight and smells aggressively of pine needles, cheap sausages and panic.

One minute the house is normal.

The next minute there is a tree indoors. A tree. Inside seriously!

No roots. No soil. Just a tree that has clearly been abducted.

It smells like outside, squirrels, frost, possibly another dog who has opinions, and you have decorated it with shiny dangly things that move when I breathe near them. Some of them scream if touched. Others fall off and shatter and then everyone looks at me like I personally planned it.

I sniff it once and you shout.

I sniff it twice and you panic.

I sniff it a third time and suddenly I am “too interested”.

Make it make sense. This violates every rule I know about trees and I am not even allowed to pee on it.

Then the people arrive. Not normal people. Christmas people!!!

People who never usually come to my house but have suddenly arrived wearing flashing jumpers, novelty hats and an unearned sense of authority, sitting in my spot and offering unsolicited feedback on my behaviour.

Including Uncle Dave…

Uncle Dave has always been a bit off.

Uncle Dave smells like humbugs that have lived in a coat pocket since 1987, unwashed clothes, cheap aftershave and a faint but undeniable note of wee. Uncle Dave stares at me. Uncle Dave calls me “boy” regardless of my actual identity. Uncle Dave bends down into my face, reaches for my head and pats it thoughtfully, like he is checking a melon.

I do not like Uncle Dave.

You laugh nervously and say “Oh he’s fine” while I calculate whether I can leave my own house without being rude.

And then there is the food.

My god, the food. It is everywhere. Tables. Counters. Hands. Low coffee tables.

Some of it smells like heaven itself. Some of it will absolutely kill me and you will cry while Googling “dog ate stuffing what now”.

Chocolate. Grapes. Raisins. Onions. Fatty leftovers. Cheese in quantities that would medically concern a horse.

I do not know these rules. I only know that for eleven months of the year you are organised and in charge, and then December arrives and you run the house like a children’s party where the parents have given up and opened the wine.

You drop a sausage and shout when I catch it mid air like an athlete.

Mixed messages people!

The noise starts early. Music. Laughter. Crackers. Someone shouting the answer to a quiz question they have already got wrong.

On the outside I look calm. On the inside my nervous system is doing parkour, vaulting over furniture, scaling walls and screaming “WE ARE NOT TRAINED FOR THIS.”

Dogs do not experience noise as festive background. It goes straight into our bodies. Some of us cope by sleeping. Some of us cope by being busy. Some of us cope by stealing socks, barking at nothing or pacing like we are waiting for a bus that never comes.

Then the routine vanishes. Walks are late. Meals are weird. Bedtime is a suggestion.You stay up late, sleep in, forget things, eat snacks and drift around in loose fitting trousers releasing small but concerning amounts of festive gas, and somehow expect me to just roll with this emotionally.

I do not know what day it is. I do not know why nothing makes sense. I do know that everything feels louder.

Wrapping paper appears. It rustles. It smells exciting. It hides things. You shout when I eat it but leave it on the floor like a challenge. Ribbons, tape, tags, squeakers, bows. It is basically an enrichment activity designed by a vet with a mortgage.

And here is the bit you might miss. I do not understand Christmas. I understand energy.

Stress. Excitement. Tension. Chaos. I feel all of it.

When I get clingy, grumpy, zoomy, withdrawn or “a bit much”, I am not being naughty. I am coping. I am communicating. I am doing my best in a house that has turned into a festive obstacle course without warning.

What helps is you remembering me. Some peace and quiet, a bit of space away from the noise, the food and the flashing lights, and preferably several rooms between me and Uncle Dave. Something to chew, lick or sniff while the world loses its mind.

A normal walk. A tiny bit of training. Five minutes of calm that feels like before the tree arrived.

I love you. I really do.

I just need you to remember that while you are celebrating, relaxing and calling it “festive”, I am navigating Christmas nose first, with no context, no briefing, no written risk assessment and no understanding of why the furniture has changed, and the humans have started wearing hats, while processing twelve new smells, unpredictable noise, emotional adults, rogue sausages, blinking jumpers and the sudden appearance of Uncle Dave, all without the option to ask questions or leave politely.

Happy Christmas.

Now where did you put the cheese.