Merry Mistmas

The fog's back. It's so dense over the bay, it looks like the world ends at County Hall. Everywhere feels really cold and dank. Luckily, there's no need to venture into town now, until this bah humbug load of bollocks is over.

I wish I could get enthusiastic about Christmas, but I can't. I think you either need to be religious, or have kids, to feel anything other than dread, as the holiday season approaches. My neighbourhood has been transformed into a nightmarish obstacle course of puke puddles, discarded takeaways, and bins placed out a week too early. By night, its streets produce a cacophany of police sirens, taxi horns, screeching, heel-clacking females, and bellowing, belching males. That's before the dogs who have been banished to icy back yards, start howling and yapping.

I guess underlying my dislike of Christmas, is the fact that my dad died just before Christmas, when I was eight. It's not so much his death - it's a long time ago - but the blight it cast on future childhood Christmases. If I was seen to be having fun at subsequent Christmases, it was frowned on by some relatives, and would often result in me getting a telling off or other punishment. So I guess, deep in my subconscious, there's an association between Christmas and bad things. Also, in recent years, experiencing a total lack of appreciation for efforts I've made for other people on previous Christmases, doesn't help.

So this year, I'm on strike. I'm doing Christmas dinner and that's it. Anything else anyone wants - they can sort it out themselves. Sorry if this post is a bit of a downer, but I really have had enough of this vile, obscenely over-commercialised season, and the constant pressure from retailers, and people around me, to buy into all the hype.

Why should I fill my home with such dust-gathering fire hazards as decorations and fairy lights? Why should I have a tree in my house? If I suddenly brought in a bramble bush or a clump of stinging nettles, people would think I'd gone la-la. Well, having a tree in the house seems equally ridiculous to me. And please don't get me started on this year's must have, the gaudy, glitzy-shitzy, bright red tinsel Christmas tree. That thing is the Christmas tree equivalent of a vulgar, slutty old drag queen. Whoever invented it should be sent on a one-way mission to Mars, with just an iPod, pre-loaded with Cliff Richard Christmas songs, for company.

Anyway, that's my annual Christmas grumble over and done with. Have a happy holiday season, folks, and may it bring everything you hope for, materially, spiritually and in any other way. Nadolig llawen!