Bah Humbug

Yeah, to this day I have no idea what the hell that means. Sounds cool though…plus it’s a pretty apt opener. Predictable but…bollocks I’m deconstructing my work before I’ve even started. Right, onwards….

I am an adult. I know, shit isn’t it? I didn’t think I was one. I know now, I am. Why? Fucking Christmas. I never thought I would EVER take the lord (‘s days) name in vain. Just did though.

When one starts regarding jolly old Xmas as the season of seemingly pointless spending, you’re an adult. When tinsel starts looking cheap and flammable instead of pretty and magical, you’re an adult. When shopping centre Santas seem like paedophiles, you’re an adult…an awfully presumptuous and cynical adult, but still….

 ‘Tis the ball-aching-wallet-emptying-overdraft-raping season to be grumpy. Food costs too much. Gifts cost too much. Christmas crackers? Cardboard and toys made by Cambodian orphans, (I’m sure they tried their best) – Waaaay to pricey.

So many rituals we adhere to for the year’s final month just perplexes me. Why are gifts put under an Alpine/Scandinavian/East Anglian evergreen tree? Why do we tell kids a corporate figure invented by a popular soft drink brand (*Cough* Coca-Cola *Splutter*…that doesn’t work in writing…) visits them at night depositing these often numerous gifts? Why do these stupid fucking kids believe us? Why do we hang large socks in a frankly greed-frenzied plea for even MORE gifts? Why do we hang shit on the tree? Why do we hang plastic, or if you’re middle class like me, glass orbs from the tree? Why does the reindeer, an animal that is quite obviously inferior to most mammals you can eat, play any part at all? I like jaguars; where the hell are the big cats at Xmas? Why must Santa have an army of supernatural beings at his (probably huge) house/sweatshop, slaving away all year round making upwards of 20 gifts per child for every (Northern Hemisphere based) child in the world? Kids these days want stuff you can buy at Argos, why do these elves bother? Why is he called St. Nicholas? He isn’t St. Nicholas. That was some Turkish Christian who died before William the conqueror was born…uh….I think….Yeah, feel free to correct me on that one.

I remember that I used to really adore Christmas for the first 10 or so years of my life. Then it became OK…I mean, I still got a tonne of free stuff. Now, it’s hell.

 When I was a child I left out sherry and mince pies for “Siôn Corn” (Welsh for Santa Claus…it means “John Horn”…no idea why). I also left carrots on our worryingly accessible roof for the flying reindeer. Every morning, before even caring that I’d just hit the toy-jackpot, I’d check to see if my red coat wearing idol had eaten and enjoyed my offering. He always had. One Xmas, as a personal, “Mum and Dad can be oh so funny sometimes”, semi-child-hating prank, my dad ate the offering, (Yes, Santa doesn’t exist) and left a note. It read, in Welsh of course:

“Hello Kids,

Thank you for the Tesco mince pies and the glass of sherry. But, for future reference, I like scones and 7Up more. I still left you prezzies, but next year can you try and get it right.

Merry Xmas,

Santa”

I wept. A lot. The bike I opened 25 minutes later did help assuage my weeping, but my one seemingly gigantic cock up in trying to appease the only “real” supernatural being in the world haunted me…until I worked out he wasn’t real 2 months later.

Yes, I was a cynical little bugger at the age of 7 too.

But how I worked out he was fictitious is a good story. It isn’t a funny story – just an important one. A story every child should be told at the age of 7. My painful discovery would soon become a time honoured rite of passage if every child had the event described below forced upon them. I’d be a pioneer…in dream shattering…actually, just forget I said that. Ugh

Any-fecking-way, I was watched an episode of The Simpsons, (the only TV show I’ve loved and continue to be entertained by since my early childhood). Bart had tried to catch Santa, or something. I don’t really recall the plot that well, but that’s the gist. Yeah so it turns out that Santa was actually Homer or…some other character just dressed up as old St. Nic. The utter soul-crushing devastation washed over me and drowned my childish dreams. It happened to be that I was young enough to understand that he couldn’t possibly be real. I mean, I had a relatively advanced grasp of logic for a pre-teen, (I have been raised in a family of both real and cod philosophers sprinkled with a healthy dash of teachers, dentists and I’m sure there’s a lawyer or two…God, I’m so middle-class). But it also seems I wasn’t old enough for this fact not to hurt. I’d had an inkling he can’t have been real – I used to think, “He goes to every home in one night?”, “How does he only get most and not all the gifts on my list if he’s so awesome?” and, most logically of all, “Why did the standard and number of my presents sharply increase when my dad got promoted?” But it was the knowing he didn’t exist that nearly killed me.

Now if this event became the norm, kids could get saved from this ultimate trauma.

Is this how Dr. King felt when delivering the “I have a dream” speech?

Jeez, I overstep the mark faaaaar too often. Right, eggnog latte time.