10 Reasons Christmas Kinda Sucks
I hate Christmas and for the past 16 years I have played along with it for the sake of my kid. Sure it’s been fun watching him open his presents on Christmas morning and playing with all the great new toys and games Santa brought him but he’s all grown up now, and this year will be the last time I play any part in this farce.
Pretty much everything Xmas bugs me and I’ve ducked and dived attempting to avoid as much of it as I can.
So with that in mind here in no particular order are djmick’s 10 Reasons Christmas Sucks.
Music
Christmas music makes me feel like I’m in Bill Murray’s shoes for a month. Starting in December no matter where you go or what you’re doing you will hear the same Christmas songs as if there’s worldwide jukebox with twenty songs on constant repeat and shuffle.
Out of Borders books to the chorus of Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” and into HMV to be deafened by Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree”.
On the radio, watching TV, at the pub – the same twenty songs over and over and over. At least “Another Rock And Roll Christmas” by Gary Glitter is now off the playlist!!!
Advertising
This year was like last, a new record was set for how early ads with a Christmas theme started on TV. I swear they start a few days earlier every year. It’s not going to be long before we are seeing Santa and hearing slay bells in October.
I think there should be some kind of unwritten law that says ‘No Christmas ads until December’. It would be no bad thing.
Family
The dreaded chap at the door happens every year. You just know it’s going to happen, you just don’t know when.
Christmas brings with it the relations you spend the entire year avoiding and with exception to family weddings and funerals, you never see or hear from them from one year to the next.
Without fail they are going to appear on your doorstep with a cheap bottle of wine, and even cheaper gifts. And don’t even start with all that nonsense “it’s the thought that counts”. We’re talking about Uncle Nobby and Auntie Bertha, the Cheap Charlie’s of the family.
They only show up at your house every Christmas to eat and drink as much as they can without so much as an invitation to their place next year.
And don’t go thinking you can just drop in and surprise them in 12 months time just for a little payback because they’re never home.
They spend the entire festive holiday driving around the entire family wining, dining and driving everyone crazy with their doom and gloom – well until they’ve had a few drinks. That’s when Uncle Nobby thinks he’s God gift to women and pulls out his mistletoe and attempts to tongue every woman in the room over the age of 14.
Yes, Uncle Nobby is a dirty old perv. You know it, I know it, the whole family knows it but to keep the peace and not upset your mother on a family occasion everyone keeps shtoom with the promise that next year something will be said. Not that it will, Nobby and his mistletoe will be back on the booze and on the prowl stalking his next victim.
Office Night Out
The Christmas company night out is as much fun as toothache if you work with a bunch of losers and have a boss who is some poor family’s Uncle Nobby.
You’ll be served up some half cooked excuse for turkey, accompanied by frozen veg and lumpy potatoes before suffering a night of dancing to the bedroom DJ who screams in muffles that it’s time to do the Y.M.C.A.
Small talk will turn into a slanging match after four rounds of cheap vodka that’s labeled Smirnoff. Those who spend 364 days of the year whispering about co-workers are now full of the jungle juice and feel like telling their collegues what they really think of them.
If it wasn’t for trying to bed the new secretary you’d never have turned up but that idea has went up in smoke as you watch her hang all over some management type who could earn a living working as a Mr Bean look-a-like. Oh yeah, he’s in HR, a quickie with him will no doubt increase this ho-ho-ho’s chances of climbing the company ladder.
You’ll no doubt leave a drunken mess and wake up in the morning asking yourself over and over why you shared the last dance with psycho Susan from accounts and indulged in some heavy tonsil tennis.
Some bastard will have taken a photo on their mobile, it’s only a matter of hours before it lands in your inbox. You lay there praying you have remembered the entire night and that you don’t start scratching downstairs in a day or two. Then you suddenly realise you shared a taxi with Susan. And now flashbacks of her flat are popping into your head…
Food & Drink
Mulled wine, Eggnog, pigs in a blanket, mince pies – need I say more? Sure I do, there’s Christmas dinner to cover.
The easiest way to avoid sitting at the table with all the family for Christmas dinner is to cook it. Well… that’s what I claim, the truth is I don’t really cook it, more like heat it.
Christmas dinner is a breeze these days with supermarkets doing all the hard work for you. Buy the turkey, ham and beef already cooked and sliced, the prepared roasted potatoes in duck fat only need 20 minutes in the oven. The vegetables, the soup, starters and desserts are all prepared for you too.
All you need to do is get the timing right when you heat it all up and make sure the fridge is stocked up with plenty of cold Bud for the busy chef.
Plus you done all the ‘cooking’ so it’s someone else’s job to do the washing up. It’s a win-win solution.
TV
Christmas TV sucks. Repeats, old movies and more repeats. Throw in a couple of unfunny comedy specials and be thankful for the DVD box sets we recieved.
Box sets are the savior of lousy Christmas TV.
Shopping
From the last week in November for about five weeks trying to do normal everyday things like go buy a couple of CD’s or fetch some groceries turn into a living hell.
We live in 2009, the internet era. The world at your fingertips. Millions of shops all available at the click of a mouse. Yet step into any shopping mall and you will be facing something that resembles a Tokyo subway in rush hour.
Browse the latest releases or sale section and be prepared to be poked, prodded and pushed around by men, women and children.
And if you are lucky to find a couple of decent albums then the queue for the checkout will be four wide and looped round the shop at least twice. Minimum wait is going to be at least forty minutes, probably more.
Go food shopping and you could be left asking yourself, ‘am I in a third world country?’ when you see all those empty shelves.
People buy food as if they are preparing for a nuclear war and are ready to hole up for three months in an underground bunker. Come on, the supermarket closes for one day and even then there is always a 7-11 open somewhere close by.
Sure years ago shops would lock their doors for a few days and when they opened back up milk and bread were still a day or two away but FFS we aren’t living in 1973.
Two shopping trolley’s filled to the max for a couple of days eating is madness and I didn’t even mention parking!!!
Bad Presents
The boys over at Guyism done a grand job of putting together a list of 10 terrible gifts you’ll definitely get this Christmas so there’s not much point in me going into it as they sum it all up perfectly.
Money
Short and sweet on the subject of money. Christmas costs a fortune. We buy cards and presents for people we don’t really like, buy enough food to feed a small African village and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I’d be sat here in a puddle of tears if I was to think how much of my hard earned is going to flutter out my wallet throughout December. Let’s move on…
Oh before I do, one last point on money. I keep hearing on the news the words ‘credit crunch’ and ‘recession’. From what I’ve seen there seems no shortage of money hitting those cash registers. If things are so tight where is all the folding stuff coming from?
Bible
This Christian side of Xmas always makes me laugh. How many people who share presents, stuff themselves on turkey and what not actually give a millisecond’s thought to what it’s all about?
Would less than 2% be a fair guesstimate?
Hell even the Pope isn’t taking it seriously this year with his 10pm midnight mass. If the head of the Catholic church is bending the rules to suit himself then what does he expect of his followers?
Roll on December 26th, Bah Humbug!!!
Posted on December 15, 2009 | Filed Under Life
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