I WISH IT COULD BE CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY…

I really don’t like Christmas, and the older I get, the less I like it.
There’s the build up which now starts before the clocks go back, the frantic week which precedes the big day, and the interminable siege which follows it. It’s impossible to go anywhere and there’s nothing you want to buy when you get there. It’s exciting for the children, of course; but by four o’clock on Christmas Day you’d pay Father Christmas almost anything to take them – along with all the broken toys – back to Lapland with him. You wouldn’t even bother asking to see his Enhanced Disclosure certificate.
And then there’s the wholly unjustified squandering of hard-earned cash on Christmas presents: did you know that twenty five per cent of Christmas presents are unwanted, and that 10am on Christmas morning is the peak time that the ungrateful beggars are engaged in trying to sell them on Ebay?
The trouble with Christmas is that it has got completely out of control. And last night, in my local, I launched my plan to mitigate it. It goes something like this: we can’t get rid of Christmas, because, somewhere, buried deep in the vortex of commerciality, it’s still a Christian festival. We could, however, reduce its impact by replacing it with three festivals. Those whose surname begins with the letters A-K will celebrate Christmas on 31st January, those with surnames commencing with the letters L-Z will sit down to Christmas dinner on 31st July. The third festival will be a one-day bank holiday on 25th December, available only to those who have a fully stamped-up church attendance card.
I have thought about this quite carefully. There are very few citizens of these islands whose surnames begin with the letters Q, U, X or Z; those who do are statistically as unlikely to want to celebrate the birth of our lord as most of the rest would want to celebrate the birth of Mohammed. I’m also convinced that my plan would be a stroke of commercial genius, allowing business’ who rely heavily on the festive season two bites of the cherry.
The importance of New Year will be significantly enhanced, with a stand-alone two day celebration/recovery holiday, so that will benefit the Scottish economy. You have to admire the Scots for internalising this landmark so efficiently and adopting it as their own; if only they’d managed to do that with North Sea oil.
The effects of splitting Christmas would revolutionise our ailing economy; half of the population would be on holiday for three days at the end of January while the other half continued to work, and the same would happen at the end of July. The annual shutdown, which generally lasts a fortnight, would be a thing of the past. The July celebrators would mingle with the annual summer holiday takers thus further diluting disruption in the workplace.
There may, I’ll admit, be problems with this scheme: there would be “Christmas frauds” in the same way as there are benefit frauds, so Liverpool will be on permanent holiday. And, of course, we would be subjected to two, instead of one, run-ups to Christmas.
But who could possibly object to my plan? Well, turkeys, the fat guy who works one night a year, and anyone who fails the church attendance criterion. Alternately, we could all have a four week holiday to celebrate Ramadan added to the calendar, but this will never happen because refraining form eating and drinking does not make sound commercial sense.
And sadly, sound commercial sense is what Christmas is all about.