Sorry, I'm suing Santa
December 2009 |
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Everything is pretty good in my life at the moment. I am a champion again, I have an amazing family, a wonderful girlfriend, a nice house, the businesses are going well and the only thing I am struggling with is my Christmas shopping list.
Like most men I am completely incapable of shopping. I get a headache whenever I walk into a shop and my brain completely stops functioning. I think it’s the same affliction women get whenever they try reverse parking.
So I find shopping difficult at the best of times but I find it even more so when I am buying presents for other people. I never know what to get them so surprises are out of the question because I’m convinced that whatever I get will either be thrown away or end up on a shelf in Oxfam. If I try asking people what they want I’m presented with the usual “I don’t mind” or “I don’t know” or the worst one, which is “Oh you don’t need to get me anything”.
Now I have been sorely tempted to do just that on many occasions just to see the look on their faces when I present everyone else in the room with a present apart from them, but even I can’t stoop that low.
What makes this even more frustrating is that I know I am just the same when people ask what I want. Of course I’m now at the age where people just buy me socks if they can’t think of anything original which is fine and dandy except I now have an entire wardrobe full them. The other common type of gift I receive are those silly novelty type presents that are cropping up in all the shops these days.
Now some of those toys are quite amusing on Christmas day, especially in the afternoon when I am drunk and will find farting and knock-knock jokes funny. The problem is that they wear off very quickly and by boxing day I am left with yet another one of those annoying possessions that doesn’t really belong anywhere except in the loft until the following year when it can be taken down to Oxfam or wrapped up and given to somebody who says they don’t mind what I get them for Christmas.
I hate being in the situation – and it happens every year – where I go out with friends or see relatives I only speak to at Christmas and they present me with a nicely wrapped Christmas gift. Now almost always I won’t have bought them anything and you can see the disappointment on their faces as they say “Oh it’s alright I didn’t expect anything” because you know they are really thinking “damn that cheap tight arse. Damn him to hell. What an ungrateful bastard!” So the following year I will make sure I get them something and it is a guarantee that they won’t have bothered because I didn’t get them anything the year before. This happened so much that pretty much all of my friends have agreed not to bother buying presents any more. It is too much hassle and we all have far more important things to spend our money on.
The giving of Christmas cards is another thing I find a bit of a drag. I’m lazy anyway and find the concept of writing ‘to’ and ‘from’ over and over again about as pointless and irritating as Jamie Oliver so I will generally only write cards to people I don’t see that often; old friends or neighbours for example. To me a Christmas card is a way of saying “I’m thinking of you even though I can’t be bothered to make the effort to see you”. I don’t give Christmas cards to friends I see every day. Nor do I give cards to my family. I see these people often enough that I can just say Merry Christmas to their face. Why do I want to waste money on buying bits of card that are only going to get thrown out after a couple of weeks? No I think I’ll do my bit to save the rain forest thank you very much.
Christmas was great when I was a kid. I used to love waking up early in the morning, bugging my parents and getting loads of presents. It’s great when you’re young because you get given big presents like bikes, Scalextric sets, big Lego villages and you never had to buy presents for anyone because you are a child and, therefore, incapable of doing so as a result of the 50 pence a week pocket money and the fact that you aren’t expected to have developed enough social skills yet.
Now that I’m older, it is a time of great expense and stress because I am the one who has to buy these expensive things and all I can think of when I’m fighting the mass of people crammed in every shop is how the hell am I going to pay the mortgage and bills this month? Now I know that sounds selfish and cynical but I am, so there.
Of course Christmas is the season to be jolly and they don’t come much jollier than Santa. Forget Jesus or any Pagan nonsense, Christmas is about a big fat bearded man who sneaks down chimneys and litters people’s homes with novelty toys. Sadly in this age of litigation, the magic of Christmas is no more: Santa’s gingerbread house in the North Pole is being repossessed, he is being sued by the little girl he had on his knee for sexual harassment and he has several other court cases pending from Muslim, Buddhist and Atheist children who are claiming compensation for discrimination. Apparently residents of Stansted have also been lodging complaints about noise pollution due to low flying reindeer.
It is only a matter of time before even the concept of Father Christmas will come under suspicion. I mean here is a guy who is not only clinically obese, he effectively breaks into people’s houses, steals Mince pies, drinks their Brandy and then gets back in his vehicle – presumably several times over the limit – and claims to travel around on flying reindeer... I can already hear the clamoring of the nanny state Nazis asking ‘what kind of example is that setting to the youngsters?’
Come to think of it I guess I do have a fair amount to moan about this month. Oh well; ding dong merrily on bloody high and Merry Christmas to you all.
