The thing is, the way people are decorating their houses is getting way out of hand. The entire frontage of their homes are strewn with an array of light strings; fake animals, generally reindeer and the odd huge Father Christmas (Coca-cola variety, obviously). What are they trying to achieve? It strikes me that it’s nothing more than Beat the Joneses. John Jones up the street has an impressive display, right, I’m going even bigger.

What has any of this got to do with Christmas anyway. Let’s celebrate the alleged birthday of Jesus by sticking hundreds if not thousands of light bulbs on the outside of our house. In fact let’s do it just after bonfire night, that way we can get that warmy fuzzy Christmassy feeling for about seven weeks. Nice. We can conveniently forget about green issues for the festive period. Instead of switching stuff off to do our bit to save the planet, we can switch shit loads more stuff on!

Oh that last paragraph just made me think about something. I bet those people who do illuminate their homes have a green waste wheely bin. Can you imagine the ridiculous idea of someone taking their cardboard and paper and plastic out to their green wheely bin whilst at the same time lit up by their festive display. It sounds ridiculous doesn’t it but it will be happening, you just know it. Amazing. I’m going to keep on the look-out in the next few weeks to try and see that situation with my own eyes.

I hate Christmas

Dave

The festive season must be a massive if not the biggest source of income for corporations trying to flog you stuff. I’ve not even bothered looking for stats to prove it because it’s just going to be true. I hate the whole idea of having to buy things for people, not because you love them but because the Christmas monster says you have to. Imagine not buying for someone who’s expecting you to buy them a present. Just imagine. I really want to write on the cards that I give to people:

Here’s a gift from me. I can’t really afford it, I’m only buying it for you because it’s Christmas and I’ll be skint because of it. You don’t actually need it, you probably won’t use it. Merry Christmas.

I don’t suppose that’d go down too well though would it.

From a very early age we are all duped into this merry-go-round of what I call Consumerismas. The big build up, the day arrives, the opening of stuff wrapped in shiny paper and boy-oh-boy this is great. The idea that buying stuff for people == love and happiness is etched into your soul and you’re fucked. And not just one present. Oh no, we’re now in the gluttonous age of more meaning better and the quantity or cost of something is directly proportional to the amount of love you feel for someone.

If you don’t join in with all this corporate fuelled madness you’re labelled as a Scrooge. Well if that’s the case we’ll ignore the fact that I spend the other 364 days of the year trying my damn best to be helpful, generous, polite, courteous, caring, thoughtful and loving. No, just because I hate lining executives pockets by buying pointless gifts I’m a bad person. For fuck’s sake.

Perfume Adverts on Telly

Sometime in early November they start. The Christmas adverts come on the telly and for me, the absolute worst examples are the bloody perfume/aftershave ones. You take one fit looking celebrity or model and show them: wandering down a deserted beach at sunset; attending a high-class society function; cavorting with some other fit looking celebrity or model; rambling on about life changing meaningless stuff or some other fantasy scene, shot in soft focus or monochrome. You watch and take it all in. Yes, you too Karen who works down the market with three kids, yes you John working as a plumber covered in shit all day, you too can look like Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor and live in fantasy land and have a six pack stomach or a barbie doll figure. All you need to do is spend shit loads of your hard earned cash for some fancy looking bottle of stuff that smells like chemicals and boom, your made it into the big time.

Well. I’m sorry Karen and John. No you haven’t. Karen, you still have to get up at six in the morning to get the kids sorted before you’re off to that market stall and John, sorry mate, that bunged up toilet is just around the corner. You should celebrate who you are and not try and be something you’re not and shouldn’t want to be. It’s a big fat lie of a fantasy that people with much more money than you are selling you. The end result is that they stay rich and you stay where you are. It’s time you, we, figured that out.

God and Jesus, Again

So, what has all this to do with religion. Fuck all that’s what. Corps selling consumers stuff they don’t need is not religious. It’s exploitation of the stupid masses by the rich and powerful. It’s the absolute antithesis of what the Christmas spirit is all about. If Jesus was alive and God existed, would you catch them down Argos buying Diesel perfume? Would you fuck. Do people buying all the shit think of God and Jesus when their gifts. Do they fuck.

Pathetic. And I’m not even a Christian!

Capitalism

Yeah, I understand that perhaps the whole structure of Western Capitalism is based on the corporations being rich. They keep rich partly due to Christmas. Well, in my world, all that would change. I think you could substitute the word Christmas for the word Capitalism in these posts and in a lot of cases, you wouldn’t notice the difference. Would you brother.

I hate Christmas

Dave

Coca-cola totally own Father Christmas. He’s dressed in red because that’s the colour of a can of coke. No shit Sherlock!

A traditional English Father Christmas would be dressed in Green and would certainly be more elf-like. You can read all about it on this junior school site. In fact there is a campaign in Austria to revert to something a bit more traditional in that country by:

the more traditional Christkind, or “Christ-child”, a tiny blond baby who brings a candle-lit tree and gifts to children before dinner on Christmas Eve, heralded by the tinkling of a bell.

You can read all about it in this Telegraph article.

So you see, Ho Ho Ho and all that fat bloke malarky is just a way for them, the big corporations, to extract more money from you, the mug consumer. And it all looks pretty, and it’s what your mum and dad made you believe and it’s instilled in your consciousness from your early years. See what I mean. Marketing par excellence. Utter genius. Except I’m not having any of that. Holidays are coming? Fuck you Coca-cola. Really, fuck you.

You walk through the door and you see hordes of people all hunched over the little counters madly flipping though the pages. It’s like a mad game of musical chairs to get to an empty counter. When you do it’s all elbows and arms in the way as you try and select the things you want to buy. Once you’ve done that you have to wait at Collection Point D for what seems like ages and you have to constantly watch the guy on minimum wage appearing with that thing you bought for whoever. You sort of look at the box and try and think “Is that it? Could they get a junior size snooker table in a box that size?”.

I see Argos as nothing more than sausage factory shopping. You shove a consumer in one end, you get consumer + product out of the other. Minus cash (or more likely plus bigger credit card bill). It’s about as Christmassy as a bag of pebbles and is about as far away from little kids staring though the toy shop window as you can get. What’s more terrifying for me in particular is that I just may have to do it, again, this year. Shit.

I’ll tell you a little story about Argos that does make me smile. I knew a girl called Gail when I was a teenager and she was, to a teenage lad, quite fit. All boobs and legs and stuff. I lost touch with her but then she ended up marrying a bloke I worked with and we sort of became friends again. She was now a woman but the boobs and legs and stuff where all still there and were in fine working order. She was a fine looking woman. The marriage went a bit wobbly and she and the bloke I worked with split up. Shit happens I suppose.

So anyway, there I am one year in Argos in Oldham doing all of the above. I’m feeling pretty pissed of with life and Argos isn’t helping. Suddenly, across the queues of people, I hear “Daaaaaave!“. Yep, it was Gail. She was looking as fine as ever and she appeared to have been on some form of Christmas function, perhaps an Office party or something. She was a bit glammed up. She was also a bit tiddly! Like a knife through butter Gail cut through all the queues and made a beeline for me. I felt like a tiny insect being gathered in by a praying mantis. Before I know it Gail plonks her lips on mine for the traditional Christmas kiss and she’s not messing about. I am powerless to resist and it’s tongues and everything. Blimey Charlie! If you happen to read this Gail, be happy that it’s one of the few things about Christmas that I’m happy to recount. The looks on every other Argos shopper was a sight to behold.

Nevertheless, I really hate Christmas

Dave

So, Christmas. Wouldn’t it be lovely if you could get away somewhere and enjoy Christmas in another country; perhaps just you and your partner. Perhaps somewhere nice and Chrismassy looking and it’d be all romantic and you can imagine log fires and brandy glasses and stuff. How wonderful. Except, hang on a minute. This is the time of year when families get together, give each other gifts because Argos says you have to and then eat traditional English food. It’s perhaps the only time of year you get to see Aunty Betty and Uncle Brian. Instead though, you go away for Christmas yet not in the spirit of Christmas, at all.

I do have a conflict of interest here. Nothing would give me any greater pleasure than to somehow miss out on Christmas. I dream of a bunker in the garden that I stock up sometime around the 20th of December. I fill it with food, drink, DVDs, a PC and whatever else can keep me occupied until January 2nd. I’ve even Googled around for countries that don’t celebrate Christmas and wondered if I could go and hang out there for a few weeks until the gluttony fest is all over. That’s because I hate Christmas. These people who go away have, in my opinion, another agenda altogether. They do want to celebrate Christmas. I think it’s a bit selfish to be perfectly honest. You want to celebrate Christmas but not with your friends and family? Huh? I really can’t work that one out.

I really do hate Christmas

Dave

So, being a bloke, shopping really doesn’t come naturally to me. If I need to leave the comfort of my keyboard to purchase something I want the process to be In –> Purchase –> Out. I do not want to aimlessly wander round with all the other shoppers gazing into windows looking at stuff that I want. The absolute worst thing possible for me is to enter said shopping zone without the vaguest idea of what to get for the recipients of my enforced generosity. I am forced to join the legions of people with pissed off faces picking up stuff that the intended family member or friend probably doesn’t even need.

There’s worse though. Fighting for parking spaces, getting jostled in queues, spotting people trying to jump queues (I’m thinking HMV here) and all the time having to listen to cheesy piped Christmas music is enough to make me want to scream. And, you have to remember, it’s Christmas. The season of goodwill to all. Yet all those shoppers forget that. They’re thinking me, me, me and stuff everyone else. Yet again the whole reason people are preparing to celebrate is completely forgotten.

I really hate Christmas.

You’d think that I’d really look forward to January 2nd. Christmas is over, the madness can stop and it’s a nice return to status quo. Oh no, it’s not as simple as that. You see despite the fact I wish Christmas didn’t exist, nevertheless it’s easy to get swept along in the tinsel strewn sugar coated version of reality. You can box up any woes in your life and hide them away. The postman isn’t going to bring any nasty bills and the idea is that people should be getting on with each other. Then suddenly, it’s all over.

The post Christmas period is a nuclear wasteland of desolation. You’re back in work, it’s cold, the evenings are dark and the only light at the end of the tunnel isn’t going to appear until mid-March. All that you have to look forward to is the grey dull existence of nothing much exciting happening. Without Christmas we’d have a brief few beers at New Year and then it’s back to putting up with Winter. Thanks Father Christmas, you made all my troubles go away and then you fuck off back to wherever you sleep for 12 months leaving us really pissed off.

Great. I hate Christmas.

You’re sat in your house and the cold Autumnal world is definitely shut out. The doorbell suddenly rings and you go to answer it but as you do so there’s the sound of bad unaccompanied singing coming from the street outside. Yes, you guessed it, it’s the Chav Carol Singers. If you open the door it’s sometimes preferential to shut them up, give them a small amount of change and get them to move on, probably to your neighbours. They may as well just hang a sign round their necks saying “Give us some money“. They’re going to be the older brothers or sisters of the kids who come round on Halloween playing Trick or Treat since that’s what we do here the USA isn’t it. Also, they sometimes start coming round in November. That always gets my back up.

I have my own method of dealing with them. I call their bluff. If I’m going to have to pay for my cold-call carol rendition then I want my money’s worth. So I look at them and listen intently, perhaps even joining in. The chav singers usually don’t know more than the first verse because they expect you to pay up as quickly as possible to make them go away. Well they don’t have that option with me. The usual result is that they stop because they don’t know the words and I can just move them along since they’ve failed me. Some start laughing that someone actually wants to be entertained. Those people usually just go away of their own accord.

The worrying thing is what about old aged pensioners. They must sometimes be really worried that they’re going to get robbed or burgled and just pay up. Not good!

On a side note, I really hate Christmas music being played in each and every shop in the build up to Christmas, again usually starting in November. The shop workers must go nuts having to listen to it all bloody day.

Yep – I really hate Christmas

Dave

So, I went last year and was looking forward to it. More beer I’d not heard of, more sausages please, more Aerian looking chaps and those German women that look a bit scary. Well. I walked round the stalls, nothing really new here, before joining the queue to get in the Beer Hall. There’s a queue? Hmmmm. Once inside there were more queues for beer, queues for food and the place was full of, well, your typical Friday night bunch of rowdies. There was an Umpa Band on stage and they were playing things like Agger Do and The Birdie Song. Erm, what! What made things worse was that some of the people behind the bars and food stalls weren’t German at all. Most likely Eastern Europeans from the new EU states. I don’t have an issue with people getting employment but I want my German Market to be staffed by Germans!

I’ve begun to realise that there’s something a bit fishy going on here. There are Christmas Markets all over the country, many of them purporting to be German or Austrian or French etc etc. And they’re all kinda sorta the same. Oh my mythical-being I’ve been attending franchise events! Nooooo! I’ve looked on a Christmas Markets Web Site and we have almost double the amount of Christmas Markets than anyone else in Europe. The next biggest in terms of numbers are France and Germany. There would be I suppose.

So it would seem that all you have to do is dress something up in red stuff, house it in a fake log cabin and throw a few sausages in for good measure and you can sit back and watch the Euros pour in. I wonder if they’re mostly linked by a Christmas Markets Mega Corporation and there’s a Mr Big in the Market scene somewhere. It’s going to be true isn’t it.

So I think I’ve got a few weeks to go before the Leeds Market closes for another year. I’m going to have a wander round, do the beer, sausages and Umpa thing and see what I think. I’m told the Marshmellows are good!

Nevertheless, I really do hate Christmas.

Dave

So you walk into somewhere like Clintons and you are greeted by this orgy of grotesque cardboard. Some so shockingly over the top in a Jordan’s Wedding style that Clintons could be renamed Chavtons. I actually start to feel sick and panicky in there. Of course you could always wander over to the humerous section where some witty card writer has penned a funny pun or put out of context speech bubbles on characters from a 1950s knitting magazine. Give me strength.

The Postman Delivers

After posting yesterday’s reason I thought I’d do cards today and then as if by magic the Royal Mail delivered a beautiful example of what I’m writing about. This card pictured here arrived and it was addressed to a previous occupant of the house where we live. We have no forwarding address and there’s never a return address. It’s one of a large number of similar letters and cards that we receive for previous tenants and I used to just chuck them in the bin. A few years ago though I thought I’d open and display them. Make it look like I’ve got loads of friends and stuff.

The thing is though, Martin and Martina keep sending these cards every year and still don’t know that Roger, Rebecca and family no longer live here. So they’re not in contact, at all. The other thing is, the cards are definitely getting smaller. So my guess is that Roger and Rebecca don’t send Martin and Martina cards any more, because they don’t receive any from them! How funny is that. I think the smallness of the cards is an indication of how pissed off the two Martins are. So we have two sets of people probably pissed of at other because neither is apparently sending pieces of folded cardboard. The world is insane!

My Plan

I thought of this plan a few years back. I haven’t sent or bought a Christmas Card for many many years but I decided to maybe buy a few Birthday Cards or Easter Cards or Happy 2nd Cousin Twice Removed You Just Had an Arm Amputated Card. What I’d do would be to strike out Happy Birthday with a marker pen and write Merry Christmas over the top. In one foul swoop I’d have put more personal input into the card than the original card would have done had I sent it unmarked. Genius. Like most things though, my “can’t be really arsed” gland kicked in and I never did it. I like the concept though.

I really do hate Christmas.

Dave