Tis the season to be jolly.
Pffft.
I’m over Christmas already, and
it hasn’t even started yet. I’m had it
hammered into my head for months now, on television and in the stores. Sale after sale, decoration after decoration,
and slowly, slowly, the crowds in the shopping centres are getting bigger and
bigger.
I was smart this year. Well, I
think so anyway. You see, I started my
Christmas shopping in July, and have been buying on line for months, spreading
out the ridiculous cost of everything, and stashing away my goodies in an
attempt to avoid the nightmare Christmas crowds.
However, as I find myself
inevitably forced to face the crowds for gifts I can’t buy online, some things
have become glaringly obvious to me.
Decorations
Just after grand final
day. That’s when I saw the first
Christmas decorations appear in the stores.
One of my friends posted a picture of a Christmas tree on Facebook
around this time, as she was as horrified as I was.
Please explain to me why stores
put these decorations up so soon?
Surely, having to put up with all of the bullshit through the month of December
is bad enough, but having to endure the torture for a full three months is
enough to force me out of shopping centres, and online.
This is why retailers are
struggling this year: it’s the suffocating displays of tinsel.
I’m tipping that on the 27th
of January 2012 (day after Australia day) we will see Easter stuff in the
stores. Just you wait and see…
Christmas
Paraphernalia
I think plum puddings,
Christmas cake, gingerbread houses and trees, white Christmas, truffles and my kryptonite:
mince tarts; should be available all year round. I love this stuff; it’s awesome. It should be in the stores all the time so
I’m not forced to have to make it.
However, in saying that, I dare
say all of this good stuff is compensation for the fucken crap we have to
endure through the festive season.
The decorations you can buy
these days (I sound like an old woman) are absolutely beautiful. It’s such an effort to put everything up,
that it’s a shame to take them all down.
In fact, some people don’t. How
many of you have fairy lights that have been up for like the last ten years?
I love this shit. It should stay up and make pretty all year, I
say to you.
Shopping
Shopping annoys me at the best
of times, unless of course it’s grocery shopping or shopping in cookware supply
places, like House or The General Trader.
Anything else I don’t really give a shit about.
Unless it’s chocolate.
So having to deal with the
great unwashed whilst I’m shopping is horrifying. My little bottle of hand
sanitiser gets hammered, let me tell you.
I would rather be stripped naked,
tied up and dragged across a field of broken glass than have to deal with the
shopping crowds during the Christmas period.
The whole experience seems to
bring out a different aspect to our simplistic human nature. A vicious, violent and selfish side, as we
desperately dive for the last box of chocolates, the last Barbie doll, the last
ipod/pad/phone, the last book and the best bargain, all of which we don’t
really want to buy, but are forced to by, not only because of our tendency for
material satisfaction, but out of sheer desperation for social accolades rated
on the awesomeness of said present.
I tire of being rammed with
trolleys, shoved and bumped out of the way, pushed in front of in queues,
having things taken out of my hands by other shoppers (yes, that has actually
happened to me), and being rammed by untethered infants. Gaaaa….
And don’t even get me started
on the car park… OMG… the most passive people become aggressive stunt drivers
in a shopping centre car park at Christmas time… sweet Jesus it’s frightening…
Thank god for online
shopping. It’s the sanctuary for the
sane and patient.
Excessive
Cost/Commercialisation
If some people really tallied
the amount of money they justify on Christmas presents, they could save it,
escape the whole commercialised circus, and go overseas on holidays for a
couple of weeks.
Think about it. How much money do you spend on
Christmas? You could be sunning yourself
on a beach in Bali right now, my friend.
Instead, your awesome holiday is sitting under the tinsel-bombed tree in
your living room, wrapped up and tagged with other people’s fucken names on
them.
Christmas presents have gotten
out of control. We find ourselves
spending more and more on shit that people don’t need.
The other night, Kitty
Flannagan said on The Project; ‘Everyone
you know has a popcorn maker, and egg poacher, a donut maker and a crock
pot. It’s called a saucepan. Get into it.’
How much shit to we purchase
for the people we love, to show them how much we love them, which we don’t need
to do, because for 364 days a year we have already shown them, but we have to purchase
them some ridiculous gift to prove it, all out of guilt and in the name of
Christmas.
The real meaning of Christmas
has been lost in a whirlwind of commercialisation and social niceties and
necessities. I don’t need a present from
you to know that you love me. However if
you buy me chocolate, I’m yours. In
every way.
The
Crap Gift
This really speaks for itself,
doesn’t it?
Now, I don’t expect presents
from anyone, though in true hypocritical fashion, appreciate them when they are
given. However, if you are going to
spend your hard earned money on me, then buy something that I will use and
treasure.
A plastic, singing fish mounted
on a piece of wood is not an example of something I will use and treasure.
If you don’t know what to buy
me, then clearly, you don’t know me that well, and I shouldn’t be on your
fucken list. However, if I am fortunate
enough to be on your list, then don’t waste your money on a singing fish; just
ask me what I want, or buy a voucher so I can go and get what I want.
And shove your singing fish
fair up your clacka.
Public
Toilets
You know where I stand on
this. Just know that they’re out of
control at Christmas time, and I can’t cope with it.
Again, thank the good Lord for
online shopping and hand sanitizer.
I am waiting for the day that
they have spray on hand sanitizer, so that when the great unwashed and their
children get within my hoop, I can spray them and the air around me. Now there’s
a present idea…
You
Can’t Get Anything Done
You can forget it if you want
your plumbing fixed, the gutters repaired, your lawns mowed, your tv connected
up, a new wardrobe installed, your car serviced, a doctor, a dentist, anyone
medical, or anything that requires a tradesman, because the whole world ceases
to exist during the Christmas/New Year period.
Sure, these guys work hard and
need a break, but if something of mine is broken (including my body), being the
typical, self-centred Gen X that I am, I want it fixed immediately. I don’t care if you’re on holidays in Bali
with your family (because you were smart enough to give them THAT as a
Christmas present instead of a heap of plastic fish). I need you now!
Teenage
Oxygen Thieves
Again, I feel this says it all.
I curse school holidays. Why can’t kids just not go to school all year
round? Seriously? Surely there is more stuff that they can be
taught?
They hang around in groups in
shopping centres, on the streets, at cinemas and in stores and take up space
and make noise. They wear no clothes,
dirty clothes, ripped clothes, oversized clothes, undersized clothes, clashing
patterns; messy, bleached, dirty, sticky-upy hair, and make up applied with a
trowel (boys included).
And they smell. Not just the ‘I haven’t showered for a week
because I’m on school holidays and don’t have to’ smell; they smell of twenty
cans of impulse each, chewing gum, V,
smoke and attitude.
Ggaaa….
People
That Complain About Over Indulging
Here’s a thought: don’t.
Don’t complain. There are people fucken starving in the
world, and you’re complaining about having too much ham to eat? Fucken get over yourself. We’re lucky to have that shit, and I tell
you, at the cost of about fifty thousand dollars a kilo for ham now, we are fucken lucky to have it.
Sure, we have to mortgage the
house to get it (and again, to accommodate the social expectations that the festive
season demands) but we get it just the same.
Then we glaze it, gorge on it, enjoy it and complain about it.
Just a side note: seafood is not Christmas fare.
People say they put on weight
over the Christmas period. I don’t, but
yet again, I’m a heifer anyway, so I wouldn’t notice a couple of extra
kilo’s. That’s a good crap for me.
The food we eat isn’t that bad,
and it’s only for like a couple of days anyway.
We have 362-3 days to recover from it and torture ourselves at the gym
and with every other morsel of food we put in our mouths anyway. What’s the problem?
As for alcohol? Well, if you’re going to drink yourselves
under the table to celebrate, firstly: go hard, and secondly, suck it up
princess. You indulge, you suffer. Follow up your booze with a mug of concrete,
and harden the fuck up.
People
That LOVE Christmas
Gaaa….
Family
Gatherings
This is always
interesting.
Getting a whole heap of family
together to ‘celebrate’ Christmas, when ordinarily, you wouldn’t socialise with
one another in a pink fit. In fact, some
of you hate each other, back stab each other, criticise each other’s
work/parenting/partner/clothes/hair/car/house, and so on. Not only are you forced to spend time
together in the name of Christmas, but you’re forced to buy one another
presents. Hahahhaa…
God love Kris Kringle, I say.
Aside from the stress of
present buying and organising the annual Christmas meal, the family gathering
is the single most stressful part of the festive season, which is sad, as it
should be the most joyous.
However, some of you have fucken
nutters for family members, so have a ball with that.
All in all, most of us see Christmas
as a joyous celebration spend with family and friends, offering kindness, love
and appreciation for the year coming to a close.
For the rest of us, it’s simply a head fuck, and I can’t wait for it to be over.
Merry-fucken-Christmas.
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