He knows when you are sleeping…

One sleep till Christmas and I’ve never cared less.

Well that’s just plain not true. As indifference gives way to mindless rage I find I do care, I do mind. I do, as it turns out, have an emotional investment in this our most soul-destroying of celebrations.

Because I now officially hate Christmas.

For my money Ebenezer and the Grinch had the right of it, and probably could have achieved great things if they had have been left unhindered by emotional blackmail and insipid children. They were stopped too soon. Like Hitler. I’m sure he was going somewhere with all that war and what have you (before you start I’m part Jewish, admittedly very distantly but Jewish none the less, so let’s just not).

What I’m trying to say is: fuck you, Santa.

There.

I said it.

What are you going to do? Huh? Whatcha gonna do? Didn’t think so.

Okay crazy man, drop the rotting seagull and stop doing that to the life-size cut-out of B. Arthur. That chick is hot. I’m tired and a little disoriented, but I think I’m hiding it well.

I am serious about this though, or something close to it. Obfuscatory belligerence aside I’m not sure what Christmas is actually for anymore. The obligatory disillusionment of adulthood - that inevitable and crushing loss of childlike wonder mostly brought about, I believe, by having to be part of the solution rather than the problem - is a real festive show stopper.

So I’m blogging in what is certainly not my finest hour, and am incoherent because I’m tired and frustrated. I’m sick of Christmas before it’s happened and I don’t expect it to get any better, but worst of all I hate that I hate Christmas. My childhood Christmas’ were winterless wonderlands, full of love and enchantment. But Christmas is one of those things that other people are meant to make happen. I want to know what threshold it is I crossed that left me shopping for Christmas ham, that has me giving more than I receive, that makes me honestly more concerned about cleaning up after Christmas than enjoying it while it happens. I want to know what it is that, in short, made Christmas stop being fun. When did I become this person?

This is not my beautiful house.

Post Script

Hurrah and hurrah again to Peter Carey. I just finished reading Theft: A Love Story which so far is the worst book of his I’ve read by far, and I still loved it. Hurrah.