Happy Monday, Book Dragons!
I hope you’re all feeling festive! Today is my stop on the blog tour for Merry Kissmas to You by Jenni Jennings. I’m really excited to be sharing a guest post all about festive swearing, perfect for those like me who love to swear!
Happy reading!
Swearing in a Festive Fashion
First off, I have to confess to being a shameful potty mouth, I make no apologies, I love a good swear, it’s so expressive. But you need not use the traditional curse words to make an impactful swear. If there is one thing my children taught me, it’s that you can turn the most innocent inane words into powerful swears without getting
the death stare from your granny.
When my youngest son Will was about 9, he and his friend, Ione, were feeling the injustice of not being allowed to swear. Their solution was to make up their own swear word; a swear word that was definitely not a swear word, and which they could use liberally without fear of frowns. The word was ‘Tog’. Seems innocuous enough you may think. But these two children were nothing if not committed to the swearing cause and came up with the following: Tog-off, You Togger, Get Togged, Son of a Togger, Kiss my Tog, Togging Hell, For the Love of Tog. In the end their made up swear sounded so offensive that Ione’s mum and I had to ban it. So, Tog was gone but not forgotten, and even now they’re grown-up, when they get together, Tog often gets dusted off for some sweary nostalgia.
It was these antics that sprang to my mind when I was writing Merry Kissmas to You. For obvious reasons I couldn’t have the text littered with expletives, but at the same time teenagers are no strangers to a good swear, or at least I wasn’t when I was a teenager! Festive swearing was the answer. ‘Kiss My Baubles!’ was probably my favourite, with ‘Eat Tinsel Bauble Brain’ and ‘Holy Santa Hats’ coming in a joint close second. But there are so many possibilities!
Simply take the loveliest twinkliest words most synonymous with Christmas and then dirty them right up.
Candy canes: Crap on a candy cane! Candy cane brain!
Rudolf: For the love of Rudolf! Holy Rudolf crap!
Tinsel: Get tinseld! For tinsels sake!
Frosty: Well Frosty my snowman! Get Frostie!
Jingle Bells (I mean this one’s a gift!): Jingle my bells! Kiss my jingle bells! Jingle off!
You can turn pretty much any word into a decent swear with the right emphasis on the Christmas word and an additional ‘Oh’ or ‘Holy’ in front of it:
Oh Mittens!
Oh Nutcrackers!
Oh Baubles!
Holy Yuletide!
Holy Sugarplums!
Holy Holly Berries!
If you want to go all out, use Oh and Holy!
Oh, Holy Gingerbread!
Oh, Holy Eggnog!
Oh, Holy Mistletoe!
And for a really offensive-non-offensive swear, try putting ‘Kiss My’ in front of each festive word; it manages to raise the cutesiest word to the level of filth!
Kiss My Cranberries!
Kiss My North Pole!
Kiss My Plum Pudding!
So, this year why not embrace your inner Togger and get imaginative with the festive swears! Merry Christmas you Son of a Fir-Tree!
Synopsis from Goodreads:
The brand-new feel-good festive rom-com from Jenni Jennings. Perfect for fans of Twelve Dates of Christmas, Love Actually and Last Christmas.
Milly, Robert and Sam usually love Christmas. But this year, they’re all out of joy. Milly is worried about her dad. Sam is desperately trying to avoid her ex, Nadia. And Robert is convinced he’s destined to always fall for girls who don’t like him back.
As their high-school’s Christmas Snow Ball approaches, they are all out of festive fun. But as the snow starts falling and the sleigh bells ring, maybe it’s not too late for a sprinkling of Christmas sparkle after all…
Will each of them get their magic moment under the mistletoe?
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