Fuck it.

It seems I haven't had a Christmas rant for a few years...
Why do I hate Christmas?  Oh shit where do I start?

Christmas is for kids, a time of high excitement and sleepless nights.  A time when a pile of new stuff drops into our laps.  Stuff we’ve stared at lovingly in catalogues (Amazon?) and stuff for which we’ve built up a craving.  I get that, Kids should be excited, that’s what it’s all about, but adults?  

Buy new stuff, it’s Xmas!  Eat like a pig, it’s Xmas!  Booze yourself sick, its Xmas!  Spend more fucking money than you have and spend the rest of the year paying for it, it’s fucking Xmas. 

Bollocks to all that, I rebel.  Every year my cynicism shines like fairy lights.  If hating all this bollocks makes me miserable then yes I’ll wear the tag.

At some point in my adult life I had a  gradual realisation that Christmas was a sham, a festival of greed designed by the Establishment so it can reclaim the meagre collection of pounds we’ve managed to accumulate throughout the year.  AKA The festival of greed.  Looking at it like this Christmas is almost a tax?  Fuck it.

Why do we do it?  Why do people all around the world save their money and fill their fridges for this end of year blow out?  Why?  It’s because we have no choice.  We have been conditioned from birth to behave in this way and we never question it.  Christmas, in its modern form just is, like the four seasons, the sun, the moon and the tides.  It happens every year and we all rush headlong into it. Why is an adult excited by Christmas?  Why do we feel the need to take our brains out for a month and behave in a way we do not allow ourselves for the rest of the year?  

Fucking Christmas jumpers for fuck sake.  People pay for a hideous garment that serves no purpose other than make the wearer look a cunt.  It started off from the notion that everyone (men especially) would receive at least one item of clothing that was ghastly and too unfit to be seen wearing in public.  Consequently this item of clothing would be worn only once, on Christmas day, to appease the in-laws or whichever guest has cursed us with said ‘present’ (and presence?).  Christmas jumper used to mean ‘ugly jumper’ but some clever(?) person turned this around to make jumpers that are not only crap, colourful and tasteless but also festive too.  You know, shitty Santa and snowmen and such shit.  And people buy into it; “Look at me, I’m a jolly, happy go lucky, good sport sort of a dude and wearing this monstrous woollen shit rag proves it”.  Fuck Christmas jumpers.

Every year the east of England gets brighter in December, as soon as the month arrives people sprint to the loft and drag down the miles of sparkling lights they’ve stowed away and smother their home’s exterior with miles of brightly coloured flashing shite which says “Look at our house!  Aren’t we festive people!  Look how colourful we are and by extension, rich, successful, generous…  It’s almost like Stockholm syndrome, if one house in the street goes big with the fairy lights then other families feel the need to do the same to keep up with the Jones’ festivity.  Fuck Christmas lights, my single strip of 1980’s fairy lights adorning the window (from the inside of course) is so naff it makes me laugh.  Yes it is shit but to me it’s an ironic two fingers to the sparkling shit heads around me.

What is the most dangerous phrase in the English language?  It is slightly fluid but usually takes the form of cajolement ending in the words “… go on!  It’s Christmas”.  This cajolement is usually an attempt to get a person to do something that makes them uncomfortable; spend a bit (or a lot) more money, stuff more food into our bloated stomachs, drink excessive amounts of alcohol and damn the consequences.  In my case these words led me to a curry house in an unfamiliar town where I had a nice night with good people but felt uncomfortable throughout and couldn’t wait to leave.  Worst case “because it’s Christmas” can lead to a trip to A&E, divorce and death.  Yes I’m a festive fucker aren’t I?

But what is Christmas?  What does it mean?  I’m sure kids are still taught the nativity and surely there is still at least a small understanding of Christmas as a Christian festival?  (Or further back a celebration of Winter solstice?).  But do people actually link the religious stuff to Christmas anymore?  If not why do we celebrate Christmas?  Why are millions of people of the western civilisation celebrating?  What makes us do it?  Is it the promise of another heap of new stuff to add to the useless shit we fill our houses with?

It’s probably just the ultimate opportunity to engage in the British game of “Look at me!  Look at all the stuff I have!  Can’t you see how cool, wealthy and successful I am?”  One-upmanship.  The British disease, as true and relevant now as it was when Cleese, Barker and Corbett made the sketch.  

I live in a nice, comfortable house in a nice comfortable rural town.  Apart from stuff that wears out and need replacing (stuff obviously designed to fail at some future date…) there is absolutely nothing on earth that I want!  My tele is old and second hand but I won’t enjoy watching programs any better on a new flat screen HD thing!  Think about it, if you watch a Black and White film after five minutes you no longer notice it isn’t colour!  While I’m banging on about it HD TV is the biggest example of ‘emperor’s new clothes’ since CD’s took over from vinyl at twice the cost.  And now Vinyl is fashionable again and it’s twice the price of a CD?!  Fucking mugs!  I digress…

So fuck Christmas.  Fuck jumpers and stupid hats.  Fuck lighting your house up as a target.  Fuck false joviality and fake smiles.  Fuck buying loads of stupid, unwanted tat.  Fuck Coca Santa and the cult of greed.  Fuck mince pies and dry fucking Turkey.  Fuck hangovers.

But yes please to the peace and goodwill bit, we need a load more of that.

But after Christmas come boxing day and Test Cricket.  If England are fit and firing they should be too good for South Africa but we will have to start well and play better than we did in New Zealand.