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

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, 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.

Anyway: The Traditional Christmas Dinner. I’ve attended one every year of my life and I will be attending another one this year. I also really like Turkey. I also think that people should spend more time eating together at a table and not sat in front of a goggle box watching dross like X-Factor or I’m A Celeb. So where’s the my problem(s)?

The Venue

Let’s take my example. I live in Leeds. My Mum lives in Oldham. Rebecca, one of my daughters, lives with us full time. My other daughter, Lisa, also lives with us on paper but effectively lives at her boyfriend’s parent’s house. Their mum, bless her crazy socks, lives in Huddersfield and their maternal grandparents, whom I refer to as “the nasties“, live near Manchester. My sister lives in Manchester with her new husband but he’s off the Christmas Card (sic) list due to getting steaming drunk two years ago and wanting to fight everybody. It’s a bit complex isn’t it.

In an ideal world I’d like my two daughters to have Christmas Dinner with us. I mention it every year but since they’ve spent the majority of their Christmas Dinners at the nasties house they usually go for the default option. Perhaps when I’m old older and grey greyer they may ship me to their house in one of their hover cars or something. That’s a long way off though since the housing market has been blasted into orbit by all the “do it up for profit” yuppies who have priced houses way out of reach for mere mortals. What a bunch of capitalist twats. My daughters will probably have to entertain me in a cyber-pod on planet Zarg or something.

So my Christmas Day will involve driving to Huddersfield to drop off Rebecca and coming back to Leeds for Christmas Dinner. I’ll then have to drive to my Mum’s in Oldham where my daughters should have been dropped off. My Mum will be aware that I’ve already eaten but being a Mum she’ll give me something anyway, and being a son I’ll accept it. Then it’s back to Leeds, dropping Lisa off on the way and when I arrive everyone will be drunk or asleep. Oh yeah, up to this point I haven’t had a drink and it’s probably 8.30pm.

God Getting In The Way

So when people sit down for the big meal, since it’s Christmas Day and it’s religious and that’s when baby Jesus was born, then maybe we should say grace. The chances of anyone around the table attending Church for anything other than a wedding/funeral/christening in the past 12 months is remote. If I was a betting man, which actually I am, my money is going on no they haven’t.

So what’s going on here. From my personal viewpoint it’s saying a prayer to a mythical super-being thanking it for food that actually came from Asda or Aldi. People do it though since that’s what you do. So what do I do? Openly and obviously refuse to take part in the mythical-being worship and risk the wrath of upsetting the hosts, or do nothing. I do nothing coz hey, it’s fucking Christmas. Smashin’.

Crinkly Hats

Do I actually have to spell this out? Really? Will I put one on, probably? How bloody compliant of me. Of course the hat comes out of the cracker that I’ve been obliged to pull and my pulling adversary forgets that I have arthritic wrists and it’s going to hurt. Even at Christmas.

The After Dinner Snooze

I’m mildly hyper-active. I can’t stand doing nothing. I can’t stand watching telly because there’s nothing better to do and getting engrossed in some crap show or film that I don’t want to watch. I usually get away with it most of the time but at Christmas you get sort of socially trapped. Do I “Want another beer Dave?”. No, I can’t, I’m driving and the reality is I’d rather be doing that than watching Zulu. Again. I suppose in yesteryear people would gather round pianos and sing carols or something. That’d be OK apart from the mythical-being stuff.

The Good Bits

Despite the above, here are the things I do like about Christmas Dinner. Mostly selfish ones.

• Mince Pies
• Sherry Trifle
• Port
• Turkey

Oh well, that list was shorter than expected! On to tomorrow…

I really do hate Christmas

Dave

So since tomorrow is the 1st of December, it’ll start in the morning, with pictures!.

Dave

Note (21st December)

My initial plan was to do a post every day during December 25th but once I reached 12 posts I’ve realised that I’ve covered most of my points. So the concluding post contains a couple of Christmas videos.