Joy to the world - Christmas and New Year are over!

“Eeeee! I’ll be glad when it’s all over.”
Santa: this fat old twister has cost everyone a fortune.Santa: this fat old twister has cost everyone a fortune.
Santa: this fat old twister has cost everyone a fortune.

During my formative years I heard many adults say that about the festive period, but I never believed them.

Glad it’s over? Surely that sort of thinking only applied to wars, illness or double maths. Not Christmas and New Year.

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Regrettably I am now an adult, technically, and fully empathise. Christmas is a chore and an expensive one at that.

I loved it when I was a child. But that was in the days when I could get away with “gifting” (as dreary people say) close relatives with soap, or Kendal mint cake.

Today my advice to couples is to not buy each other anything. I’m serious.

You have to buy something for your other half with a roughly equal fiscal value to whatever they give you. After this pricey business you both end up with something you may or may not like. Keep your money and have a blow-out in mid-January instead. You’ll definitely enjoy that.

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Christmas is great for kids and only the flintiest misery guts would want it to be otherwise for them.

My main objection is to adults who think the millions who don’t share their idea of what constitutes “fun” are somehow out of step, “Scrooges”, or are simply trying to be different. We’re not.

“Fun” means enforced jollity. This often starts at work when people who never have anything to do with you socially at any other time of year, demand that all colleagues gather for Christmas drinks, or worse, a meal, rather than meet up with your real friends.

Particularly horrendous Christmas work nights out might even involve karaoke - in between talking about work.

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Fancy dress anyone? This has been used for centuries by people with minimal personality and zero sense of humour, to delude themselves otherwise by wearing “zany” outfits.

Not quite as bad, yet still irritating, are Christmas jumpers, which are often environmentally damaging. Worse still, they are never, ever funny. Ditto antlers and flashing socks.

Still, if that’s what makes people happy, who am I to demur? Just as long as they remember that we’re all made happy by different things.

On Christmas Day 2019, 3,003 people in the UK filed their tax returns. Why not? If that’s what tickles their fancy. Let everyone enjoy Christmas their own way, if enjoyment is even possible.

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I’ve yet to do my taxes and would be happier had I attended to the matter on December 25, rather than do what I did - waste hours of my life watching ITV and instigating gout; inviolable traditions though they are.

Hallelujah, it’s done. The shops are removing their decorations (although they’ll probably be back up about a week after Easter), pubs and public transport will be back to normal. You won’t hear Slade for a while.

Ah Christmas music. I almost forgot about that. It only falls into three categories. Played to death. Rubbish in the first place. Both. I’m not singling out any specific Mariah Carey-related horror for the third category.

Eeeee! I’m glad it’s all over. See you in an empty pub in Hebburn some time soon.

Oh, and happy new year.

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