Scrooge’s Christmas crackers
… and so my thoughts turn to Christmas.
I wish they wouldn’t. I loathe Christmas. It’s an ordeal that I rank up there with unblocking the lavatory, protracted root canal work and proctological examination (which last I have yet to endure, but visualising the procedure’s psychological effect demands minimal imaginative chutzpah).
There is one small glint of moonlight in the morgue, however: by some horticultural miracle, last year’s potted tree is still with us – just.
Granted, it’s lost half its foliage. But at least I can save £15 by re-using the bugger. Assuming I stand it against a wall.
It’s got me thinking about other things I could re-use. Hey, why not? If you’re hating it anyway, why not claw back a few quid on the deal?
I’m figuring a bit of glue and concentration could probably resurrect the Xmas crackers, if you remember to save the pieces. And the Christmas cake’s a dead cert. Nobody eats the fucking thing anyway, so they’ll never notice if I wheel out the same cake 10 years in a row.
I’m inspired by the Empress Dowager with her 100 dishes at every meal. The eunuchs knew she only touched the same 10 favourites every day, so the rest were served up, untouched, week after week… until they were rotting under the porcelain tops.
That’s my kind of hospitality.
I like to recycle christmas presents. Ones I don’t want/like go into a drawer only to be re-wrapped and handed on to someone else the next year, Now that saves a few quid. I hate christmas too, bah humbug!
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
hey..you could just take photos of christmas this year and then simply put a photo album out for evermore…that would save time and money..LOL
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Carrie: It’s a great plan… until you accidentally give something to the person who originally gave it to you
Tanya: Excellent plan. And that way, I stay young forever to boot. Unimprovable.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I assume your Christmas cake is equivalent to our famously foul fruitcake, in which case — yeah– you can trot the same ugly puppy out every year. It’s also a good way to get rid of unwanted guests.
November 23rd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
I too utterly detest the “Season of Stupidity” as it is known in this house. It costs a fortune, you can’t go anywhere ‘cos everything is shut, and they put out all the unbearable, bland, artless old crap on TV that no one would watch at any other time… Not when they weren’t being held prisoner in their own home, or worse, by their own extended family.
For once though I don’t blame Gordon Brown. (I’m nothing if not a fair man, so I’ll give him one day off a year.) Nope, I blame Prince Albert and all his cronies with mutton chop whiskers.We have the Victorians to thank for inventing the modern concept of “Christmas” and thereby totally fucking up December for generations to come.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Altadenahiker: Yeah, that’s the one. Heavy as a gold ingot, and slathered in inch-thick marzipan and royal icing. When archaeologists are sifting through the remains of our civilisation, Christmas fruit cakes will be the only pristine, intact objects they find.
Greenmantle: So right. Bloody Victorians screwed everything for us. Charles Dickens has to take some of the blame, to be fair.
November 24th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Three cheers for Soilman! I just abhor the frantic, panic of an atmosphere in the high street.. like everyone is going to starve because the shops will be closed for one day! Let me know when it is over!
November 25th, 2009 at 9:14 am
I love christmas
My wife invites her family over from France for the festivities – I but tell them I have to work because my boss is a slavedriver.
I can do fvck all at work except surf the internet and go down the pub for half the day. Nobody gives a rats arse because they are either on holiday or in the pub with me. I get paid for this jolly and when everyone is back at work in January and the family have returned to France I take some time off.
Last year I got a David Hasselhoff “in pants” tshirt from my brother which he made me wear over christmas. I in turn got him a cheap sack and crack trimmer – he loved that buff felling. This year I went to Mexico on holiday and found him a lovely Mexican wrestlers mask which I will oblige him to wear during Christmas dinner. I look forward to his shitmas present more than anyones.
Christmas rules.
November 25th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
I realise I’ve been missing a whole world of Christmas enjoyment, Cazaux. The key, I now see, is to revel in the horror and do one’s utmost to derive amusement by subverting its complacent dogmas.
I can see a rich vein of black comedy in this, which is the first good thing about Christmas I’ve noticed in years.
Thanks!
November 25th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
That’s about it; add to that the mild inebriation during the day on company time and it hits the nail on the head. It will ensure a rekindled enthusiasm for this joyous pagan feasting period. You could also rebel and honour the old gods whom Christian Christmas was based upon
Why not dress in full toga on the big day, raise a glass to Isis goddess of nature then give thanks to Saturnalia the roman god of Agriculture for your bulbous sprouts, frost sweetened parsnips and deride his creation of the Rutabaga and why they grow so well when other more worthy veg fail.
For me the defining moment in time when Christian Christmas finally lost its way was the advent of Coca Cola’s very own Father Christmas. I wasn’t born then so this Christmas is the only one I know and how I love to mock it with humour – dark humour.
November 26th, 2009 at 4:11 pm