Bah humbug - until Saturday!

Don't get me wrong, by the time the big day comes around I'll be right in the mood for it, but the build-up to Christmas won't even start for me until Saturday.

It's not that I'm going all Scrooge, it just when you're a professional boxer with a fight at the end of the year, you can't think about Christmas until you've got that out of the way.

I'm fighting Andrejs Tolstihs of Latvia in Newport on Friday and until that's over, Christmas is on ice.

My girlfriend, Sarah, has been on about putting a tree up and things like that but I'm having nothing to do with it just yet.

It's the week building up to a fight - my fifth as a pro - and that's all I'm focussed on. I just can't get excited about Christmas until that's out of the way.

It's been even worse for Sarah because it's not just Christmas I've put on hold - it's her birthday too! She turned 25 on the 6th but the party's had to wait until Saturday as well. I'll be going to Sunderland v Portsmouth in the afternoon, then a lot of mine and Sarah's close friends are coming to my house for a big party, so it should be a good night.

It wasn't meant to be like this, of course. The plan was for me to fight in Nottingham on November 20, but that went out of the window when I perforated my eardrum training for it.

Although I wasn't able to spar, I could train while I was waiting for it to heal, so it's made the build-up to this fight a long one.

I reckon I've probably had about 10 days off since I fought Artem Solomko in mid-October, so I'll certainly be glad of the break when Christmas finally does come around.

I'm not expecting to have many fans at ringside on Friday, and that's fine by me. A few people seem to think they have to go all the way down to South Wales to watch me, but that's not the way I see it. I'm really grateful for all the support I've had throughout my career but I don't expect people to make the five-and-a-half-hour drive down there, especially so close to Christmas.

I reckon there'll be about 20 or 30 people travel from Sunderland, and that's fine by me.

The numbers will be boosted anyway by some Jeffries I'll get to meet for the first time. A few people from my dad's side of the family who I don't really know live down there and they'll be coming along to cheer me on. It'll be good to meet all them after the fight.

I suppose when I do that, Christmas can get started!