Whether you’re going to cook up wild boar, goose, reindeer/kangaroo steak, venison or any other fancy bit of flesh (I note from the supermarket hard sells that a bit of old turkey no longer suffices) don’t let Christmas spoil December 25th.
What I mean is do not let the national psychosis of the Christmas phenomena ruin the wonderfulness of midwinter. To help you through, there is a little humorous offering at the end of today’s blog.
I know it's too late as the real pressure began some time back in September, before Halloween and Bonfire night were out of the way. But, as we spiral towards oblivion, emotionally and spiritually crippled by capitalism-gone-crazy, try to cling onto some tether of normality.
As the urge to spend and wrap and spend and eat and spend and get-in-the-mood (by which people surely mean black depression and weepy hopelessness) and spend and drink and spend and eat and spend and HAVE A GOOD TIME, leads inexorably to the implosion on the 25th we seem closer to losing the plot now than ever before.
Yes I've banged on about the idiocy of Christmas, our Christ-less-mess, on this blog before -
Blog 22 Drink Driving with my Dad
Blog 55 Free Christmas Feel Good
Blog 58 Chri£tma£ - We who are about to buy salute you.
but really... my ‘c’ word radar is positively pulsing with radioactivity and agitation this year.
I know I have it easy being T.V-free I am not actually having the-way-you-must-do-Christmas pumped into me intravenously. But even I cannot avoid all the shop ads for twee crap that you must have to make Christmas ‘perfect’. The unbelievably ridiculous food you would never usually contemplate in gut-straining quantities – the gold table runners (excuuuuse me!), scented candles, dresses, gross hat-glove-scarf combos, bad shoes, idiot jumpers (ironic idiot jumpers), weird coloured alcohol, themed serving plates, enough meat to make a lion puke, ‘party food’ (what is that?) tree decorations (what - the ones you bought the last 20 years are the wrong shape?), puddings, cakes, hams (in case you haven’t had enough meat already to ensure bowel cancer by boxing day), tapes of Christmas music (actually I quite like those), Christmas story books, Christmas stockings (like the amount kids get is going to fit in them), Christmas cards, bows, paper, tags, crackers, spare shit in case people just turn up, CRISPS AND SNACKS IN CASE ANYONE GETS HUNGRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And that is before present buying for all those people you are worried are going to buy something for you...
Just stop
Just stop.
You can’t afford it; you don’t want to do it, the more you do it the more you have to do it.
25th December is actually a lovely holiday; the Winter solstice overlaid with hark the herald angels singing. Cold, a holiday and a nice singsong in church – what’s not to like? Where the bloody hell did all the other stuff come from? It’s the other stuff that ruins it.
Ease up.
Enjoy the dark which can make things seem cosy. Enjoy the longer nights the urge to eat/drink hot stuff (homemade soup?) and wrap up and cuddle. A little bit of something yummy is lovely especially as we know from all the news we haven’t been able to ignore that we are incredibly privileged not to be out on the streets starving and scared.
Give your purse, yourself and your mental health a break.
And here’s a sort of relevant humorous treat featuring yours truly that a poetry pal posted a while back