Forget about world hysteria as stockpiles of nuclear arms build up and go unaccounted for, forget about stockpiles of bonds and shares whizzing around the global capitalist market, forget about stockpiles of cheap microwave meals as families ready themselves for impending doom. Unwanted christmas presents are a much more material threat than any weapon of mass destruction – they sadden us, guilt trip us and essentially worry us. Their effects are immediate and the situation is dire.

 Christmas is supposedly a joyful momentous occasion, but its aftermath is bloody. In amongst all the pleasantries and the rich food, lurks the subconscious restrained voice of a lunatic screaming: “why on earth have you got me that!!!?” However, we love to think that we’re immaterial and that its only the thought that counts. We’re wrong. Someplace, somewhere, our mind bitterly searches for an explanation for the purpose of such gifts.  Every year we get stuff we simply don’t want. It adds up. We stuff it into drawers, we hide it under beds, it builds up and it congeals. It oozes out of containment like a freshly gaping sore. It causes mental pain. “Oh the guilt! I cannot stand it, I should have told them, I should pass it on to charity, I don’t want to hurt them.” Why care so much about an animal shaped corkscrew? That person went to no real effort. They copped out and so should you. Take your unwanted gifts to charity, bring down the commercial engine, wage your own little revolutionary war.

Rubbish Christmas presents!

You can always count down the days to Christmas online, with the Advent Calendar blog!

Come January 1st everyone thinks their lives are going to change for the better. How many of us make promises? How many of us take stands? How many of us announce that next year is the one in which we will do better, try harder and achieve? New year’s resolutions? New year’s remonstrations!

This year I am going to be more positive. However, it’s only been a few hours into the New Year and here I am having failed miserably. I’m already moaning about the futility of making a new year’s resolution and bemoaning Brits nationwide for making them. Recently a BBC website journalist posted their new year’s resolutions on the H2g2 page (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A30303488). Wish number five is: “Get rid of gloomy thoughts/banish fear and hate from my heart/be a good friend to many people”. Pah! Impossible. There is no such thing as a fixed cure to for banishing hate and fear from ones heart, it is a matter of progression. The clock won’t just strike twelve and the all the hate and fear disappears forever. Please be a little more realistic with your goals! The sentiment is nice, but the inevitable failure will just leave you gloomier than ever before.

Look around the internet, dig a little deeper. Cue more resolutions. In flood the usual suspects: “spend more time at home and less time at work”, “Lose weight” etc. What does this say about the British mentality! Are we all so discontent with ourselves? Are we all so selfish that our resolutions can only be restricted to improving our own lives? I look abroad, more prevalent are the messages promoting peace to the world and a year of good fortune. Have we got our new year’s heads screwed on right? Let’s be a little more globally concerned!

Christmas shopping is so depressing. What am I supposed to get? How do I part my way through the constant barrage of ugly human traffic? How do I prevent buggies and young children trampling all over my feet? How do I remedy the hatred for Christmas in my soul? I’m just not sure.

Christmas is an ugly commercial monster which only grants most of us two days off work, but still it assaults us with months of abuse via irritating television adverts, immoral marketing ploys and dancing polar bears. The most irritating thing about Christmas in England is that it is all about snow, presents and parties and nothing about religion. Not that I care that much. Jesus and his poxy birth date overshadows my own in falling five days afterward, rendering it impossible to arrange any form of celebration for my aging carcass. The irritating messiah stole my thunder two thousand years previously. Also, the fact that I had to wait twelve months of the year before I got any kind of present or money as a kid, further nurtured my Christmas humbug sentiment.

In fact my hatred is coming along nicely with those extreme liberals who suppose that we should ban any type of religious celebration in order not to offend the highly diversified British population. However, what I’ve come to understand is that Christmas and the reference to it as ‘religious’ are no longer mutually inclusive. Christmas spirit is dead; the high street has created a faux Christmas hell bent on decimating our own pain thresholds. God speed the New Year.