Burn Christmas Burn!

I hate to be a sopping tent on a camping holiday in Llandudno, or a whopping blowfly dragging its hairy legs through the icing on a birthday cake, but I’ve decided to give Yuletide a miss this year. Let nothing ye dismay, merry gentlemen, the rest you’ve been bellyaching on about since I was knee-high to a grasshopper is nigh. Having had enough figgy pudding and synthesisied cheer to last several lifetimes, it’s time to bring down the curtain on the pantomime Christmas has become.

The idea came to me one particularly grey, and dispiriting November afternoon while writing my Christmas card list towards the close of the last century. Finally I’ve resolved to do something about it. My biggest problem is how to spring these tidings of great joy on Angelica.

In common with a growing number of malcontents, I tend to breathe a huge sigh of relief when four months of infernal jingle bells rocking are done. My days of harkin’ to bloomin’ herald angels singing over, this year – or early next year to be precise – I plan to celebrate the death of the traditional, festive pig-out, as opposed to its commencement. It’ll be more like an Irish wake than a party. Or perhaps like a Satanic ritual to welcome the fact that we can all get back to being misanthropic again. Not that some of us ever stop.

A few similarly Scrooge-minded friends and I intend gather at a secret location, deep in the Andalucian pine forests, at the stroke of midnight on Twelfth Night. Stripping down to our birthday suits we will commence dancing naked round a huge bonfire of limp sprigs, tired twigs, and broken branches of holly, misletoe and fir. Piled high with baubles, tinsel and gaudy wrapping paper, we will watch the flames engulf them to the chants of my anti-crimble carol Thank Christ It’s All Over – the lyrics of which I have yet to finish – as we gnaw at raw piglet hearts and quaff from flagons of turpentine till we drop.

The carol will go something like this:

Burn, burn, burn you last vestiges of consumer folly,

You tired old twigs and sprigs of fir, misletoe and holly,

Burn, burn burn tatty tinsel, tarnished baubles and pies of mince,

You toys without batteries, ripped wrapping, and something, something … make me … um,  want to … wince,

Burn, burn, burn, delicious flames crack and spark, something, something, something … (I could really do with a bit of help here).

To finish with a cheery little cartoon short, of just over five minutes, click onto: Wake Up Call: End the Nightmare of Consumption

You get the picture. Happy Christmas to one and all.

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