I volunteer at the I.W. Steam Railway, Events Dep't, for me Christmas starts in earnest on Nov 1 and will last until mid Feb, during that time I will erect four Santa's grotto's, help to construct one winter wonderland, erect several xmas trees, collect and store four large transit vans of presents - 1 year to 12+, 1000's of mince pies, 20 boxes of mulled wine plus mulling machines, wrestle with several large cuddly reindeer, polar bears and other soft toys, drag 50 plus boxes of decorations out of the Station attic and get them ready for pat testing where needed, put up three stations worth of outdoor tinsel and turn one Southern Railway concrete lineman's hut into Scrooge & Marley's counting house. However the worse thing is having to listen to piped 'jolly' Christmas music , whilst the automatons in the wonderland play a dozen different Xmas tunes at the same time. The best time is when I get to heave the worn out and broken into the skip, and shut the door on the Santa store for another eight and half months.