After my shameful Bah
Humbuggery in the previous post, I had a little think about how grumpy
Christmas and all its irks and quirks made me feel, and would you believe it, I
fell asleep at my desk.
I was awoken by the
rattling of chains and the stomping of feet. In my groggy state I mistook it to
be the ringing of choir bells, so I sat up and launched my slipper at the
window, punctuating its dull thud with a hearty “PISS OFF!”
Then a spectral voice
behind me called my name. “Wiiiiiiibs, Wiiiiiibs,” it howled, rattling its
chains.
“What do you want,” I
barked, picking up the remote and flicking the TV on.
“Turn off the teeee
veeeeee...”
“What?” I snapped, over a
deafening advert for the latest Transforming-Mega-Morphiniser-Bot-a-Tron, with
laser night vision and new jack-knifing action.
“The teeeee veeeeee...turn
it off...”
“Turkey what?”
The remote was snatched
from me by a clammy grey hand and the TV flicked off. I looked up into the
ragged face of the spectre, and found it looked a lot like-
“Holy crap, you're me. Or me after three glasses of whiskey. And your roots need doing.”
“My roooooots aren’t
impoooooortaaaant!” Boomed the spirit, and thunder and lightning cracked
outside. “I mean, my roots aren’t important. Look, have you got five minutes? I
need to lay some truths on your fat ass.”
“Yeah, whatever, there’s
nothing on anyway.” I shuffled over and patted the vacant side of the sofa.
“And there’s no need to be personal. Ectoplasm or not, your ass is fat too.”
The ghost sat down, its
chains rattling. “Ahh, thanks. The buses are a frigging nightmare at this
hour.”
“What’s with all the
bling-bling?” I gestured.
“Oh yes,” said the ghost.
“Look, I’m the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. Basically I’m the representation
of you if you don’t buck your ideas up and stop being such a Christmas crank.”
“Wait, you’re the Ghost of
Christmas Yet to Come?” My eyes widened. “What a rip-off. Ebenezer Scrooge got
three ghosts, and I just get the last one? And what’s more, you talk, and you’re not even a Muppet.” I
slumped back in the sofa. “This sucks.”
“This is what I mean,” the
ghost sighed, rolling its eyes. “You’re expecting too much of Christmas,
setting it up for a failure before this one has even started.” The ghost got up
and poured itself a whiskey from my decanter. “Look, you must have enjoyed
Christmas as a kid.”
“I did not,” I lied
unconvincingly. “I was a prim young lady who never once pulled any crackers or
egged any nogs.”
“Oh please,” drawled the
spirit, “You loved it. One year you even got a Barbie for Christmas. Your
feminist friends would be shocked.”
“Fine,” I said, folding my
arms. “Look, what do you really want from me? I was only poking fun in my last
Blog. Nobody reads that shit anyway.”
“Do another post,”
suggested the ghost, slumping against the liquor cabinet. “Only this time be
honest about what you like about Christmas. And none of this Hallmark Cards
family and hugs bollocks; tell me how you really feel.”
I raised an eyebrow. “And
then you’ll fuck right off?”
“Then I’ll fuck right off.”
“All right,” I sighed.
--------------------------------------
THE TRADITIONS
When I was a kid, both
sets of Grandparents lived eighty or so miles away.
We would make the trip down one year, and my Grandparents would come up to us the next Christmas. When my Grandad died, we still made the trips up and
back. Then my Grandma died years later, and my Uncle made the trips down to
us, and then I moved out and got married and now have a fledgling family of my
own to organise at Christmas.
But one thing always
remained the same: every Christmas morning, no matter which bed I woke up in,
my brother and I would always have a full stocking sitting at the end of the
bed. Sometimes it was Father Christmas’ doing, then my parents’, and then my
husband’s, but it was the same every year. Then, my brother and I started doing
them for my parents. Every year we’d comb the shops for little palm-sized
gifts: lip gloss for Mum, a photo snow globe for Dad’s desk at work. It was so
much fun putting them together on Christmas Eve, in my room while music played,
trying to figure out if the snow globe would crush the satsuma or if the bath
bomb had leaked glitter everywhere.
What I'm saying once you
scrape off the layer of sugar is that no matter where you are or who you
celebrate with, sometimes you want to hang on to a ritual that makes your
Christmas happy. Everyone has them, and everyone should.
THE COLD
Cold is under-rated. In
the summer you can take off clothes if you get too hot, but you risk the threat
of public indecency. And even if you can strip right off, what happens if
you’re still too hot? You can’t take your skin off. If you’re cold in the
winter, you can warm up by sticking on the heating or a sassy Christmas jumper.
Or, rather brilliantly, our bodies will warm themselves up after a brisk walk
through the town centre or at the seafront (the only time I will ever endorse any
kind of physical activity).
The cold makes us all
equal: absolutely nobody on the planet looks hot in Ugg boots. Sure, you may
have amazingly toned abs, but jumpers make you look cuddly rather than
chiselled. If you went out in the summer in paisley or candy stripes or with trees and deer and
bobbles and glitter woven into your clothes, frankly people would faint from shock. In Winter, nobody looks twice. Unless you’re wearing
a dinosaur-themed Christmas jumper, then they look because you’re AWESOME
(Santa please take note).
THE ADVERTS
I hate, hate, hate
adverts, and I think it started when hubby and I got a TiVo. It meant I could
fast forward through the fat opera-singing idiots and talking meerkats to get
back to my choice of programme. Adverts wind me up so much, I believe that if I hadn't got a TiVo I would have put my foot through a lot of TV screens.
Christmas adverts, like
the season itself, are basically amped-up versions of themselves, so by all
means I should hate them. But sometimes, more often than not, there’s one or
two miniature works of art garlanding the schedules. One year there was a
memorable ad with a little boy waiting anxiously for Christmas Day to arrive,
only to reveal he was urgent to give his parents the present he’d picked out
for them. “Wait until you see it,” everyone had said to me, “You’ll cry.” Bah,
yeah right, adverts make me dry-heave, not cry.
But then it caught me by surprise during an airing of The Simpsons and I admit my heart grew a few times in size. Or
maybe it was just indigestion.
Of course, there are the
dreadful Christmas ads that blare annoying jingles and flash lights at you, but
they are quickly forgotten. And if all else fails, you can make fun of the insultingly
pretentious perfume ads. I've even made a fragrance ad bingo. Play along if you
wish:
 |
| If the Brad Pitt advert comes on, drink until he shuts up. |
THE CONSOLE WARS
I'm going to go a bit
geeky on this one. Christmas just after new consoles are released must be like
Christmas with a split-up family: each console releases flashier and fancier
titles, hoping to win the love of its cosseted fans. It starts off in the
summertime when the gaming expeditions start to premier their upcoming titles,
and then launches into a frenzy in the Autumnal months with game after game
hitting the shelves. There’s something for every gamer, whether it’s a big
family play-fest guaranteed to get Grandma flinging the remote into the fish tank,
the latest midnight release in a franchise, or that hot indie game that
promised to “turn console gaming on its head”. Although games are now a lot
more expensive, there is a much bigger range. Even if you’re a Grandparent who
continuously buys an Xbox game for your Nintendo-mad Grandkids, you can now
simply buy vouchers.
It’s similarly exciting
for music fans. Artists start releasing ‘bonus editions’ of their albums:
essentially the same one they released in January or February but with slightly
different cover art and a few remixes or the latest single tacked on for good
measure. Frankly why you’d buy the same album twice is anyone’s guess, but it
must work, otherwise why would they keep doing it?
I'm more than happy for
Uncle Ninty and Auntie Microsoft to keep fighting, because that means I get
more shiny new gifts to tempt and toy with my heartstrings every winter. And
what’s better than getting gifts?
THE GIVING
Oh yeah, you didn't think
I’d let you get away without another dose of seasonal diabetes. It sure is nice
to get shiny new things: there’s nothing like being handed a present covered in
shiny paper for you to rip open and squeal over.
But then there’s also
something so nice about giving. There’s something about going shopping with Mum
and watching her finger something longingly, then sneaking back while she’s
distracted and handing it to a winking shop assistant. Something magic about
listening carefully to the little hints my Dad gives me and surprising him with
something even he didn't know he wanted. Watching someone open a present they've probably already guessed you’re getting them; the glint of relief and
gratitude in their eyes.
I groan when I hear Roy
Wood belting that he wishes it could be Christmas every day, but then I kind of
get his drift: if I could make my friends and loved ones as delighted without
giving them something in a glittery bag, I’d be happy. So even though you
don’t have to be happy or jolly or love everything about Christmas, be mindful
of those around you and the things they give to you and what you might do for
them in return.
-------------------------------
“Is that good enough?” I
asked, exhausted.
The ghost nodded. “Yeah, I
think that’ll probably do. It’s not going to win you a Pulitzer, but it's fine.”
“So am I saved?”
“For now,” said the
spirit, reaching for my decanter once more. I flung my remaining slipper and it
passed through its stomach with a whoosh.
“What was that for?”
“You said you’d leave if I
got all holly jolly,” I said, slinging my feet up onto the sofa. “Now beat it,
before I call the Ghostbusters.”
The ghost smirked. “You’re
still a hell of a Grinch,” it drawled, fading away. “But you’ve got good taste
in whiskey.”
