The Pure Hell of Christmas

 I have this dream around this time of year. There I am sitting at a table  surrounded by ahem"friends and family"(who in this dream I do not know) all wearing silly paper hats and stuffing themselves into a mindless stupor with  sprouts and turkey(and OOH these sprouts have been on the stove since Thursday ! and OOH getting that 64lb Turkey into the oven wasn't half a chore! ) Needless to say the awful bread sauce is thick enough to put into a mould and the shrieking from sundry brats  blarting about how Santa didn't bring them the latest version of Zombie massacre 29 (and some of those brats are at least 32 ) is enough to burst your eardrums and of course my fresh foaming pint of "Old Horizontal" is just out of reach and the bells jingle louder and the fake snowflakes fall like 81mm mortar shells and every list has been checked at least twice.......

Then I wake up on a cold sweat and THANK GOD it is only December 6th.

PHEW!!!!

Now don't for a moment think I'm anti- Christmas. I'm not- well not altogether- though perhaps if James Stewart HAD jumped off the bridge in "Its A Wonderful Life"  we would not have to put up with that mawkish drivel year after year. (Though I can handle "The Great Escape" and even "The Wizard of Oz" no problem).

 No my problem here is not MY or indeed myself and my wife Carole's - Christmas but the way every other buggers Christmas- or more accurately the expected  correct commercial Christmas is rammed down your throat like a 12 pounder roundshot. 

It's enough to make you weep sometimes.

 So what is my kind of Christmas- well for a start it means a few days off without having to think about little lead men or parcels, some "quality time" (awful phrase)  for Carole and myself perhaps the odd visit to family.... maybe... though hoping to avoid stroppy teenage nieces who can't converse without use of the texting thumbs.

 As for Christmas dinner- well I hate Turkey so this year it is venison- so Rudolf had better not stop here. He'd be on the plate before he'd finished noshing his 3 millionth carrot of the night. How the overweight bugger leaps from rooftop to rooftop is beyond me and if Santa gets outside all that sherry- or milk and cookies  when in the USA- he's going to throw his guts up somewhere over the Pacific .Will NORAD be able to  track that I wonder?.

So basically I'm looking forward to the holiday to a bit of peace and quiet - and even  a small amount of Goodwill to all men - and women.
So here's Hoping your all have a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year.