Sour and grumpy – this how I am characterized by our rapidly dwindling circle of friends – why – because, apparently, I don’t like christmas or new year. I say apparently, because it’s not an opinion I actually hold, rather it is one that has been applied to me by others. christmas, new year, birthdays, weddings, parties – all much of a muchness as far as I am concerned, like any other day of the year when you are obliged to do something you don’t want to do, like washing up or emptying the cats litter tray. Not exactly awful, but certainly not special, just occasions when jolliness is obligatory – but really most people would rather be reading a book, walking the dog, watching telly or sleeping. It’s the element of obligation that pisses me off. Why do we have to say ‘Merry Christmas’? It certainly does not make me merry to receive such vacuous banalities why should I give it. Same with ‘Happy New Year’, pulling frigging crackers, giving gifts, eating food, sitting together, talking, laughing, breathing – tiresome obligations!

So much more fun to give a gift when you fancy, to party when you fancy, laugh because its funny, talk and sit together because you like each other and like to watch the same thing on telly. To say ‘have a great day’ because you want someone’s day to be great, not because on December 25^th you must say it,  because everyone else is, because Dickens fans say it should be so, just because a baby was not born 2000 odd years ago on that day – HAPPY CHRIS’s CHRISTMAS! I love it.

PS. And I make no concessions for the ‘joy of wide-eyed children in the morning when they run down in their pink and blue jim-jams.’ The only childhood Christmas I remember finding even a bit special, was when my Nan gave me a gun with a real revolving magazine and bullets that had to be individually charged with gunpowder caps. A meticulous but worthwhile task with many misfires.