The Twelve C’s of Christmas

CONSUMERISM: Christmas used to be about celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ or, for those of a less religious persuasion, marking the Roman winter solstice with a festive feast. Now, however, it is about enduring at least two months of the kids screaming “I want that!” at various TV adverts, before we place the entire Argos catalogue under the tree as thinly disguised “presents from Santa”. Have the little ‘uns discarded those expensive toys in favour of hitting pan lids with wooden spoons yet, or playing with the empty cardboard boxes? This form of rejection is inevitable by Boxing Day. Historically, harking back to ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’, perhaps the rampant consumerism was always in the making… after all, whoever needs all those turtle doves, French hens and partridges in pear trees? The 12 Lords a Leaping could be a real liability. At least they weren’t made of plastic in China though.

CHAOS: Christmas may start earlier every year but that doesn’t make it any less hectic, as those of us who were trying to procure last minute gifts on Xmas Eve will know. While “advent” is more stressful than a high-pressured work project, Christmas Day needs to be precision-planned to avoid it descending into a rendition of ‘Bad Santa’ rather than ‘Fairy Tale of New York’. I’m sure there’s a huge, untapped market for specialist Christmas Day planning software – gift planning software is already widely available via a Google search.

CHILDREN: Christmas is all about children. However, we might have harboured slightly different thoughts when they dragged us out of bed at 4am to search for Santa.

CREDIT: Apples, oranges and simple wooden trinkets aren’t considered acceptable Christmas gifts for the youngsters these days. It’s all sophisticated gadgets with large price tags. Meanwhile, that organic, free range turkey might’ve set you back £40; excluding the trimmings and bottle of Baileys you’ll drink while waiting several hours for it to be “done”. Those who still have any credit facilities left after three years of recession will be paying off giant card bills for Christmas 2011 until Christmas 2012. Flexible friend, huh! The ‘never never’. More like a plastic cosh.

COOKING: Preparing a Christmas feast is fine for those who are confident in the kitchen. However, for the culinary-challenged, the intricacies of cooking a large bird without the risk of food poisoning; producing roast potatoes that aren’t bland or burnt black; and dealing with flatulence-inducing sprouts can induce a nervous breakdown. You don’t want to cremate that £40 bird before you’ve even paid for it with real money… CAKE: Do you know anyone who actually likes Christmas cake? No, me neither. Perhaps a research agency should conduct a UK-wide survey to identify the true popularity of this festive ‘treat’. While kids nibble reluctantly at the icing and marzipan and pull faces at the dried fruit content, the adults make polite noises while secretly wishing it wasn’t really on their plate, and especially not so soon after the turkey dinner. Christmas pudding, if moist and covered with brandy sauce, is a different matter.

CALORIES: According to Food.gov.uk, the average adult consumes 7,000 calories on Christmas Day. Remember that this is the national average, so some people consume a whole lot more. Christmas tipple alone could exceed an adult’s recommended daily intake of 2,000 calories. A day on the lips… several months on the hips… and an expensive gym membership in the New Year. Yikes.

CRACKERS: The Christmas table wouldn’t be complete without crackers to pull. But must we really endure those ‘hilarious’ jokes that fall out to ‘delight and amuse’ us as we dig into the sprouts. Just think: whole teams of long-suffering cracker manufacturer employees are expected to dream up ‘fresh’ jokes every year. What a soul-destroying task. We could save them by adopting a “just say no to cracker jokes” stance.

CLIFF RICHARD: For most people, a rendition of ‘Mistletoe and Wine’ by Sir Cliff is enough to cause a sudden, unwanted re-emergence of the turkey dinner later in the day. Like bad cracker jokes, this tune should be ‘archived’… permanently.

CHRISTMAS NO. 1: Rather than having “real music” from “real bands” to entertain us over the festive period, we must put up with whatever chart-topper the X-Factor has served up this year. Great, huh! I’m glad I’m too old to care about the Top 40 but last year’s Bird tune was just hideous, a donkey is in the running this year, and there’s no escape from the annual media hullabaloo, especially if the X-Factor contestants have snogged each other under the mistletoe. As for blasts from the past... 'I Wish it Could Be Christmas Every Day': we definitely don't!

CRAP TV: As well as the annual crop of Christmas tunes, there’s also the dose of traditional celluloid ‘entertainment’ to make Christmas Day really special. Fancy several hours of ‘Dad’s Army’, ‘Porridge’, ‘Morecambe & Wise’, ‘You’ve Been Framed’, ‘Benidorm’, ‘Britain’s Favourite Christmas Songs’… no moderately sane person would watch this selection by choice, surely?

CAVA: …But at least there’s the option of a bottle of Cava to put bubbles into the proceedings: time for a festive glass of Bucks Fizz.

Happy Christmas!

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