theZEBRA's Weblog Site • NuTang.com

//I wrote this some time ago. Just thought I´d post it to help with the spreading of Christmas joy and spirit.//

Christmas is coming. The stores started putting out their Yuletide decorations a month ago, your Christmas shopping is half done...or you wish it were, red and green wreaths hang at almost every door, you’ve received and sent off Christmas cards by the stack, and carolling rehearsals are now a part of every Friday night.

Ahh...Christmas. The joy of DIY Christmas trees from Ikea, the stringing up of tiny light bulbs (amidst muffled exclamations and curses), the shattered bits of fragile ornaments, gummy tongues after licking too many stamps, the frayed tempers of parents busy planning for Christmas dinners, and the guilty faces of little children caught trying to peek into their presents. When needing a break from all that, turn the radio or TV on, and be prepared for HBO movie after movie bombarding you with the spirit of Christmas – the very thing which stressed you out in the first place. There is only so many times you can listen to the same Christmassy jingle without being tempted to hurl the radio out of the 25th storey window. ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’ and Linus’s speech on the True Meaning of Christmas however has once caused a certain cynic to go all misty-eyed and vow to enjoy Christmas for once. She forgot about it the next morning though.

This is the time of the year when cynics link arms and wiggle their tushes merrily to the beat of ‘End of a Christmas Dream’. There is no more satisfying scene than the heartbroken face of a young boy who has just realised that Santa’s beard is indeed detachable and is not even made of real, 100% Santa hair. Do you remember those little cane-shaped red-and-white striped treats which only come out once a year? Yeah, well you’d better enjoy them, kid. ‘Cuz those things don’t come cheap anymore. Grinning elves in pointy, belled shoes stand behind booths, boxes of gaily-wrapped peppermint candy canes in one hand, and a credit card machine in the other. Thousands of letters to the North Pole remain unanswered, kids have given up trying to be nice and have reverted to the easier life of just being plain naughty. Science tells us that if Santa did deliver presents every Christmas Eve, he’d have kicked the proverbial bucket years ago.

After spending the first seven impressionable years of your life in ignorance and useless fantasies, it’s high time you realise that you’ve been deceived by the people whom you love and respect most of all -- your parents. It’s just another grown-up plot to keep you terrified of not receiving any gifts at Christmas, of being blacklisted by the fat bearded old guy, to keep you on your toes, to put you on your best behaviour. So that you’re exhausted by the end of the day, fall asleep face-first into your spaghetti, and are too tired to ask for another five minutes before bedtime. That’s over now. You’re finally safe in the knowledge that Santa’s probably bedridden, if not already dead of cholesterol or diabetic problems, that the toy factory in the North Pole has almost certainly been repossessed by the government after years of tax evasion, that the Santa and Co. corporation have been sued countless times for emotional damage, that the reindeer are definitely too fat to fly anywhere, that Rudolph’s nose has run out of batteries anyway, and that the elves are on strike till their lawyers have negotiated for more benefits like company cars, medical benefits, annual leave and bonuses as well as paid vacations to somewhere warm for a change. Safe in the knowledge that your roof will stay intact, that no one will track soot all over the living room, and that you will never have to deal with cookie crumbs and milk stains on the carpet...

Until you wake up one Christmas morning to find reindeer poo on your lawn.

Categories: Misc [t]