I Wish It Could Be Christmas Once A Decade

The Christmas season now seems to commence on or around October 24^th. It is around then that we are first subjected to the brutally sentimental and abjectly cynical Christmas adverts by the major retailers; it is around then that the first tawdry tinsel is draped feebly in shop windows. It is also around then that the first tingle of anxiety and foreboding start to wriggle into my consciousness. It is approaching remorselessly and there is nothing I can do about it and it is going to get far more intrusive.

When young, I regarded it as a magical time. Although I never fell for the Santa propaganda, it did seem a period bedecked in bunting and fantastical with fairy lights. Even rushing down in the morning to prise open a tiny square on my Advent calendar, revealing a deeply unconvincing depiction of the birth of Christ, could send me into paroxysms of fevered excitement. As I grew older, the Christmas period was more often besprinkled, if not drowned, in oceans of booze; from about the 22^nd December to the 2^nd of January, I was mired in a miasma of alcohol fumes. All I had to show for it was the odd vague, confused memory – an ill-judged remark on the 23^rd; falling down in an alleyway on the 27^th; a mysterious, livid bruise on my inner right arm gained some time on the 29^th. Nowadays, Christmas Day feels like an amalgamation of all the dreary and uneventful Sunday's of the year. Even the so-called comedy 'Christmas Specials' on the box are usually woefully lame, seeming to consist of all the jokes considered too unfunny to appear in the original series.

Can music save Christmas? It is, after all, the time for the traditional beloved Christmas carols and the old pop favourites of yesteryear, resurrected and played to death on the radio and in shops. However, now that I harbour a far more jaundiced and world-weary approach to Christmas and all its irksome trappings I find myself reacting in the following irascible manner to these festive tunes:

“It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” - please furnish me with incontrovertible evidence for this unfounded and arbitrary assertion

“Ding Dong Merrily on High” - cease your interminable and overpoweringly annoying ding-dongery

“Jingle Bells, Jingle All the Way” - you leave me no alternative but to inform the local noise abatement officer. Expect a visit shortly.

“The Holly and the Ivy” - what do you expect me to do with such wretched foliage? Move along please.

“Christmas Time, Mistletoe and Wine” - the wine is corked and of an inferior vintage and the mistletoe is frankly inedible. Poor show all round.

“Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” - don't bore me with the colour scheme of this ghastly quadruped's proboscis.

“Hark the Herald Angels Sing” - I refuse to pay heed to the ceaseless trumpetings of those cumbrously-winged beings

“Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart” - I fail to recall you proffering such a distasteful and almost certainly illegal gift. Socks please this year

“Once in Royal David's City” - I expect once was more than enough in that contemptible metropolis

“Don We Now Our Gay Apparel” - Not so. I am clad in drab and unostentatious garb, thank you very much

“All I Want for Christmas Is You” - the very fact this atrocity is brayed by Mariah Carey is enough to chill the blood.

“Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time” - highly unlikely at the McCartney residence, with bracken sandwiches, roast hay and grass kebabs on the menu. He may also inflict a ditty upon you proving once again the complete ruination of his voice. Avoid at all costs.

“Little Donkey Carry Mary Safely On Her Way” - clambering aboard a malignant, malnourished ass while heavy with child verges on the criminally negligent. See you in court.

“Oh, I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day” - such a longing renders you unfit to hold public office. Bother us no more.

“Silent Night” - a vain hope with police helicopters droning overhead, car alarms screeching, foxes emitting unearthly yelps, revellers bellowing inanities beneath my bedroom window. Don't be facetious.

“Are You Hanging Out Your Stockings on the Wall?” - I possess no such garment and, even if I did, wouldn't put it on public display for voyeurs to gawp at.

“Fairtytale of New York” - OK, I'll let you have that one, it's a classic

“In Dulce Jubilo” - Eh?

Despite this parade of negativity, I still hope that this year's festivities can actually pass without too much mental struggle and emotional turbulence. I may regain some of that childhood magic and wonder and find some joy and happiness. It is possible, especially if I avoid the Birds of a Feather 'Christmas Special'.