Ah, Christmas!
Look, it's only for one day people. So paint a smile on your stupid faces and get festive... OR ELSE!
Ah, Christmas! When we suspend our beliefs (and disbeliefs) and family hostilities for 24 hours (hopefully) and come together in the spirit of the season… with the assistance of some overproof spirits.
Ah, Christmas! When we, the residents of Central Queensland, suffer through another stinking hot, sub-tropical, Summer day, by dressing up like Eskimos, eating hot food and singing songs about snow while the thermometer explodes on the wall behind us.
Ah, Christmas! When we put aside our principles, and values, in order to lie our arses off to naïve, ignorant, impressionable, children that the smite-y, Jewish God, Little Baby Jesus and Nordic Santa are really benevolent sky fairies wanting to bring peace, joy and mountains of presents (made by non-union elves).
While avoiding any suggestions that Christmas Jesus wasn’t a white-skinned, blue-eyed, blonde haired, hippy, or the American gun-toting, vengeful, Jesus who would gleefully bomb the actual brown Jesus into atoms.
Ah, Christmas! When even the bad tempered, openly racist, uncle with a dodgy combover, dressed in the tattered, lime green, safari suit he bought on a stop over in Hong Kong back in 1985, is welcomed into the house.
Then prodded with a vermin stick to the little children’s table where he is pelted with food by delighted toddlers while he rants about how the Illuminati, Freemasons, Rothschilds (or, depending on how far down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole he is, the Lizard People) are controlling the corporations secretly running, and ruining, our great country.
Ah, Christmas! When teenagers are pried from their gaming consoles and dragged bodily from their rooms, to sulkily eat one meal this year in the presence of actual, real, people.
Ah, Christmas! When, the old folk, who can’t remember a single thing they did yesterday, recall, with startling clarity, Christmases of their youths in order to completely bore the brains out of the yawning teenagers whose fingers are still twitching from endless hours of online gaming.
Ah, Christmas! When even non-believers put on silly paper hats, blow party whistles and join in singing schmaltzy, gushy, corny Christmas Carols, but only to help drown out the shouts from the bad tempered uncle to, “Put Neil Diamonds’ ‘Hot August Night’ on the hi-fi turntable! And none of that rap crap the young people listen to nowadays! A bloody good war will sort them lazy, little, louts out… HEY! WHO STOLE MY LIGHTER?! AND WHO PISSED IN MY PANTS?!”
Ah, Christmas! When, I try to convince anyone too drunk to get away from me, that the greatest Christmas Carol ever sung is NOT Paul Kelly’s ‘Gravy’, nor is it ‘Silent Night’ or ‘Away in a Manger’, it’s a John Lennon’s song:
Hands up if you thought it was going to be, ‘War is Over’…
Ah, Christmas! When, as the marathon day slog draws to a close, everyone prepares to go home with groaning stomachs, groggy heads, and armfuls of presents (most of which will be tossed into landfills within six months).
When tired, sugar filled, overstimulated, children decide now is the time to throw an over the top tantrum aka: Going Full Trump.
When teenagers scuttle back to their dank rooms to gleefully compare notes with their mysterious online comrades about the horrors they’ve endured.
When the family fights over who gets to take home the bad tempered uncle who is, eventually, found in the master bedroom, snoring peacefully, as his nicotine stained drool creeps across the pillow and vomit seeps through the sheets.
Ah, Christmas! When even this cynical scribbler stops himself from channeling the Grinch and takes a little break from the eye rolling, scoffing, over the top, hypocrisy of it all and, early in the morning while the house still sleeps, will take a misty eyed, little trip down memory lane, to re-visit past Christmases with friends and family members no longer with us, before getting caught red-handed by Donella listening to this:
And will feebly claim, with a bald faced lie, that it, ‘just popped up on Youtube!’
So, in the spirit of the season:
Oh, and….
BAH HUMBUG!