Look, I have something to admit; I’m not great at Christmas. It’s the time of the year when all my limited get-up-and-go gets up and goes. I think it’s because it’s near the shortest day of the year, and I seem to be a bit solar powered and temperature sensitive (or “bloody nesh” as my hardcore northern colleagues would have it) since developing M.E.
But! This year, I have people to help, so its been Rachel and Jo who sorted out last posting dates, write a returns policy, handled all the inevitable emails, figured out we could send out most of our January wholesale orders from the stock we got last week, worked out how to make gift packaging, and well, a million other tiny things that make a big difference but you might not notice.
So, on Tuesday, myself and Dave (the unseen business partner and sys admin) toddled up to Sheffield on the train, and we went to a small family owned Italian Restaurant and ate too much, as the antithesis to most fashion brand parties that consist of cocktails and very small cakes, and were forced to drink limoncello (only 25% alcohol!). As I don’t drink, I made disgusted-cat-face and Jo was forced to drink mine. Also, we pulled crackers and actually wore the paper hats. We were joined by lots of people who’ve helped us out this year; Brian, who accommodated and fed my youngest sister when she worked for pants while I was in hospital in Spring, Sean and Claire, who staff the stand at Erotica and put me up whenever I need to stay in Sheffield, Catherine, who gets rung up when we need a computer fixed, and a man we know as “Mr Rachel”, whose job is “Rachel Enabler”.
And then we went into the office on Wednesday to take pictures while people were a bit hungover, because I’m slightly evil. I know at this stage its normal to present some sort of photoshopped pretty Christmas Card, but its not very us. Instead we played with our whiteboard and created this for you:
Between the three of us who work fulltime here (we’re a huge company, oh yeah!), we have one art GCSE, one fine art degree, many years experience in metal work, blacksmithing, arts and crafts, knitting, and oil painting, and yet not one of us is any good at all at computer graphics. But we do genuinely wish you all a very Merry Christmas – seriously, you’ve made our year. We’re British, so I can’t do a Treacle and say how much we “love all our fans“, but we are actually quite fond of you, especially the ones that natter to us and about us all over the net and in our inboxes and whatnot.
Because of this, we thought we’d make up for our lack of graphical ability, and also permanent absence of anything remotely resembling Boxing Day/January/ Summer sales, by sending out presents over Christmas. We’re taking a week or so off, on the basis that between bank holidays, our office being basically closed and unheated as everyone else has left, and erratic postal deliveries, there didn’t seem much point us sticking around, but the website is still live. So, if you make an order over £50 from now until the 4th January 2011, we’ll send you out a free gift with your order when we get back, while stocks last. That could be anything from a Vargas Dress to a pair of knickers, as we’ve put aside a big box of things for this, separated by size, obviously.
What's that? You still want a pretty picture? Oh . . . . look, House Of Burlesque have done one that is our lingerie with Santa skirts and hats. How about I show you that?
Yeah, we like them lots, too!
Have a stocking filled Christmas and a lingerie-tastic New Year,
from Catherine, Rachel, Jo, and all the oft-unsung supporting cast at Kiss Me Deadly!
