Bah Humbug... Or Something

by Adam Slade


"Oh, the weather outside is frightful,
the lack of fire is sooo damn spiteful,
I don't care if it cooosts a ton,
turn it on, turn it on, warm my bum."

Or something.

I'm what you might call a Pre-Christmas Curmudgeon. Or 'miserable sod', should you prefer. Most do. If I see a Christmas advert before the first of December, it's too durned early, and I make a mental note not to buy anything from that store unless absolutely necessary (i.e. they're cheaper). I find decorations silly and distracting, the music jangly and irritating, and the trees? Tree? Indoors?! Pfft.

On or around the tenth, though, this all changes. The music makes me grin like a loon (ok, more like a loon), I help put the decorations up where they'll stand out the most, and I go nuts with the tinsel on the tree, which I crawl into the attic to retrieve, despite the spiders.

In the lead up to 'the day', I sit in the front room with a huge cup of tea in my hands and my swaddled tootsies up on the coffee table, watching repeats of '70s comedy Christmas specials and finishing the punchlines for them. I'm 27, and yet come the night of Christmas Eve, I don't sleep. I lie there with a grin plastered on my chapped and cracking lips, my legs jigging as I attempt to both warm the sheets. and keep my bladder full and mattress dry (that may be an exaggeration).

And then it arrives!

It!

The day!

Um, y'know... Christmas?

Try and pay attention.

It's the only day where I'm up ridiculously early -- and by that I mean before 2pm -- and don't care. I stagger downstairs, shiver, stagger back upstairs to put clothes on, stagger halfway back down the stairs and realize I have caveman hair and breath, stagger to the bathroom, then make it all the way to the kettle before I remember that I put my appallingly wrapped presents under my bed. This process of repeated stair climbs continues for another twenty to thirty minutes before everything is where is should be. When the family has finished laughing at me, we pass around the prezzies, and well, you know how the rest works.

My good spirits last throughout Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and sometimes even the day after, before receding. Once again the songs are crap, the tree is stupid, and the decorations are a fire hazard.

I keep the cards, though.



Photo credit: deltasdazzlingcostumes.com.au