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fuck xmas

21 December 2000
Jamie gets into the festive spirit.

I left my advent calendar on the windowsill. The sun came out. Now a piece of chocolate that used to look like Santa is seeping from Homer Simpson's left eye.

Why, when you get down around Christmas, do people treat you like a leper, calling you Scrooge or Grinch? It's only once a year. Women get all moody once a month, and they're immediately forgiven. And theirs is all irrational. Misery at Christmas is easily justifiable.

Stupid, common people the country over decorate their gardens, houses and shopping centres with all the lights they can find, luminous reindeer, flashing signs. All this in blatant disregard of current advice on conserving energy and protecting the environment. And flying in the face of anything resembling good taste.

The rows of brightly-lit houses resemble a landing strip. I start thinking, Surely all it needs is a plane to be slightly off course, the pilot to be a bit confused, and we would have one of the all-time great crashes.

Every shopping trip, you might as well be being pursued by an over-excitable epileptic with sleigh bells around his neck. From mid-November, every shop gets a licence to play as much shit music as they want. There's no escape from the soundtrack, from the mood of self-deluding cheeriness that permeates the season. The best thing is to put on a Walkman and try to block it all out. I've got Stan and Kill All Hippies on continual loop: drunk driving, insanity, drugs and death. About as festive as you can get.

In Next, two middle-aged women start singing along to Rockin' Around The Christmas Tree. And dancing. I glower at them. They stop laughing and mutter inaudibly while I look on. Then Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire comes on and I have to leave.

All over the country, fat men don their white beards and red suits and get paid to have children sit on their laps and beg them for puppies. It's like Christmas came early for the paedophiles.

[Although this does occasionally lead to the comic vision of Santa being led away in handcuffs. Cue hoards of children, uncomprehending and inconsolable, weeping at the grotto. I saw Mummy kissing Santa Claus? This one wins hands down...]

As I make my purchase, the assistant looks like she is about to wish me a happy christmas. She thinks better of it. A single bottle of Economy Bleach doesn't mark me out as the festive type.

Carol singers. Not the half-hearted ones who give you half a verse of Silent Night, ask you for fifty pee and then fuck off, I'm talking about the really genuine ones who sing with their eyes closed, and will happily stand their for hours in the freezing cold without so much as the offer of a mince pie, safe in the knowledge that their true reward is yet to come. That shit scares me. At least Jehovah's Witnesses don't inflict tunelessness and tambourines on you. Give me the bastard Watchtower any day of the week.

And when the day itself finally comes around, when you've unwrapped a score of presents you don't want, eaten a turkey you don't like and haven't even had the chance to get properly pissed (because it's Christmas), when all you want to do is sit in front of the telly and forget about the whole fucking day, you're not even allowed to turn on the Bond film, because it's time to play some stupid game 'for the children'. Or even worse, go for a walk through the frost. Just because it's Christmas. 'It's what we do every year'....

But hey, it is Christmas, and we all enjoy it really, and it might snow this year, and they're showing Bond films for three days after Christmas too, and you see all the family and the kids love it. Cheer up, you grumpy old fucker. That's better.

when i get home i drink the draught down and as a burning sensation fills my stomach and my head starts to go numb i lie down with my arms outstretched and then i think no you idiot thats easter...

 

 
     
Previously on upsideclown

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Current clown:

18 December 2003. George writes: This List

Most recent ten:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
11 December 2003. Dan writes: Spinning Jenny
8 December 2003. Victor writes: Rock Opera
4 December 2003. Matt writes: The Mirrored Spheres of Patagonia
1 December 2003. George writes: Charm
27 November 2003. James writes: On Boxing
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
20 November 2003. Dan writes: Rights Management
17 November 2003. Victor writes: Walking on Yellow
13 November 2003. Matt writes: Disintermediation
(And alas we lost Neil, who last wrote Cockfosters)

Also by this clown:

15 December 2003. Jamie writes: Seven Songs
24 November 2003. Jamie writes: El Matador del Amor; Or, the Man who Killed Love
13 October 2003. Jamie writes: The Persistence of Memory
22 September 2003. Jamie writes: The Email Eunuch
1 September 2003. Jamie writes: Credo
11 August 2003. Jamie writes: Brad and Jennifer and Me
21 July 2003. Jamie writes: Interruption
30 June 2003. Jamie writes: Do you remember the first time?
12 June 2003. Jamie writes: Forthcoming Attractions
19 May 2003. Jamie writes: Stupid Mistake
28 April 2003. Jamie writes: Hoping and Praying
7 April 2003. Jamie writes: Strangers on a Plane
17 March 2003. Jamie writes: Q&A
24 February 2003. Jamie writes: Altered States
3 February 2003. Jamie writes: How to say goodbye
13 January 2003. Jamie writes: In A League Of Their Own
23 December 2002. Jamie writes: What's in a name?
2 December 2002. Jamie writes: Lies, Damned Lies and Spastics
11 November 2002. Jamie writes: Memoirs of a Gaysian: A Preface
21 October 2002. Jamie writes: Love is blindness
30 September 2002. Jamie writes: Time for bed
9 September 2002. Jamie writes: Angry Exchanges Can Be Puzzling [10]
19 August 2002. Jamie writes: High Speed
29 July 2002. Jamie writes: Firkin Hell
8 July 2002. Jamie writes: Do you, er... haiku?
13 June 2002. Jamie writes: Unnatural Porn Thrillers
20 May 2002. Jamie writes: The Triumphant Return of the Septic Fiveskins
25 April 2002. Jamie writes: Meeting People is Easy
4 April 2002. Jamie writes: I Want I Want I Want
7 March 2002. Jamie writes: The Player of Games
11 February 2002. Jamie writes: Fat Man Walking
17 January 2002. Jamie writes: Passive/Aggressive
3 January 2002. Jamie writes: Love (classified)
29 November 2001. Jamie writes: A Lil' Nite Muzak
5 November 2001. Jamie writes: Natural born liar
11 October 2001. Jamie writes: All I need
17 September 2001. Jamie writes: Postcards From The Edge (of the pool)
23 August 2001. Jamie writes: Class act
30 July 2001. Jamie writes: Ritchie Neville is dead
5 July 2001. Jamie writes: A Letter from God
11 June 2001. Jamie writes: "If it's in French, it must be deep"
17 May 2001. Jamie writes: Reportage
23 April 2001. Jamie writes: Show me the Logos
29 March 2001. Jamie writes: Sobering Thoughts
8 March 2001. Jamie writes: Stupid, Stupid, Stupid
8 February 2001. Jamie writes: Spent
15 January 2001. Jamie writes: Full to the brim
21 December 2000. Jamie writes: fuck xmas
27 November 2000. Jamie writes: Eye Candy
2 November 2000. Jamie writes: World-wide-web?
9 October 2000. Jamie writes: Kids' stuff
14 September 2000. Jamie writes: Scatological Warfare
21 August 2000. Jamie writes: I can't stand up (for falling clowns)
10 July 2000. Jamie writes: The Etymology of Greatness

Let meeeeee entertain you

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