Its that time of year again when the snow falls from the sky, everyone
comes together in the spirit of cheer, adorable little cherubs knock upon our
doors and sing us endearing songs about our messiah who saved us all and we are trapped within an
inescapabable world of commercial harassment that is Christmas. Except wait, in
my eighteen years of survival I’m yet to witness a white Christmas day,
everyone is still a dick to each other and the little carol singers are
confined to the front of a supermarket ignored by the majority of our populace
who couldn’t give a shit about Jesus unless there getting presents or
chocolate. So all it really is, is an inescapable world of commercial
harassment. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate Christmas, (Well I don’t hate
Christmas day. Which in my opinion is the only day during the holiday season,
which should be acknowledged if you choose to celebrate Christmas) Its every
other day in the weeks prior to Christmas that cause the bile to rise in my stomach.
Every year over the entire
country in mid November adverts on television and in shop windows make damn
well sure we don’t forget that Christmas is on the way. I personally like to
think of these early signs as a warning system of what’s to come; otherwise
there presence causes me to scream “JESUS CHRIST!!, IT ISN’T EVEN CHRISTMAS FOR
A MONTH” at the nearest person who looks like there unaware of this fact.
Similar to some small mammals that sensing the impending cold of winter, go
into hibernation. These ‘first adverts’ remind me not to turn on the television
or go into densely populated areas such as towns or cities and to stay in bed
for the majority of the day.
However sooner or later I end up having to face up to the ridiculously
stressful scenario of buying presents.
This year I intended to do my
entire Christmas shopping online, though when I realised I had less than five
days to buy the remainder of the presents I realised that anything I ordered
from now on would not be delivered in time for Christmas day. At first the idea
of leaving the house and venturing into a Christmassy environment revolted me
causing an almighty rage to build within me. Eventually this subsided only for
it to return even mightier when I drew close to the shopping centre. The first
thing I noticed was a crudely animated decorative Father Christmas that seemed
to be convulsing violently as though in the grip of a sudden possibly terminal
ailment. This was followed by a menagerie of other tacky decorations and feeble
lights that failed to impress. These were bad enough but when I entered the
shopping centre I was immediately tormented by what I believe to be the worst
part of Christmas, which is the music.
Every single year the same terrible songs are played repeatedly wherever
you seem to be. Each one sounding menacingly similar to all the rest whilst at
the same time sounding different and managing to embody everything I hate about
Christmas. They all seem to involve lyrics about decorating the house, the
music that is on during Christmas and enjoying everyone else as company. I’m
not really sure how there came to be so many but at the same time hearing the
same ones over and over each and every Christmas causes me to wish death upon
all Christmas artists, except one. The only Christmas song I’m not ashamed to
admit enjoying is ‘fairytale of New York’, which I enjoy because the Pogue’s
are an underrated band who have done numerous other songs I like and because
‘fairytale of New York’ is ultimately about a pissheads empty promises on
Christmas which is a much needed break from the rest of the Christmas songs.
If you can block out the
Christmas anthems incessantly being played the next emotional distress you have
to deal with is the anxiety of what to get everyone for Christmas. I have to
buy at least twelve presents for twelve different people every year and each
year it becomes increasingly difficult to decide what to get everyone. Looking
back on previous years I think about how easy it was to get my younger cousins
one of many cheapish toys that they would have genuinely been pleased to get,
now a few years down the line they have all outgrown toys so I have to actually
think about what to get them. Which isn’t only difficult because you have to
think of something each person will like but is made increasingly complicated
by the politics of Christmas shopping. You have to consider how much your going
to spend on each person and whether or not to buy two presents for someone if
you spent quite a bit on a present for someone else. Eventually I battled
through these difficulties and got most of my shopping done which leads onto
the irritating and downright appalling tradition of wrapping the presents.
Apparently the generous act of going out of your own time to think about and
buy someone a present isn’t enough to please some people. If you
unintentionally do a terrible job on wrapping a present, (usually for a
grandparent) on Christmas day you can expect a glance of disappointment as you
hand them the gift as though the appearance of the wrapping paper will make or
break their Christmas. Which is completely unnecessary as the wrapping paper
usually just ends up going into the fire or into the bin (well these days
recycling bin). Yet despite these,
and a few more other annoying aspects leading up to Christmas when I’m sitting in
my living room opening my gifts I’ll forget all this because at the end of the
day in despite of what people will tell you Christmas is really just about
getting presents.
