Why I Hate Christmas.

If I tell people I hate Christmas they call me a scrooge and accuse me of being miserable and then they accuse me of winding them up. After several attempts to convince them I’m serious they slink off in a sulk making a mental note never to speak to me again. But I don’t care. I am unrepentant. I am willing to get rid of the irritating ‘cheerful at Christmas’ dimwit for rest of the year as well, just so long as I don’t have to bounce, whoop, drink enormous amounts of alcohol or pretend to smile. It hurts my face. But why do I hate Christmas? For me the reasons are obvious. Because I had terrible Christmases from the year 1995 onwards. No offence to family (bless ‘em), but during these painful years nothing could have broken down my determination to be miserable and to go home early, get into bed at 10pm after having eaten a hundred-weight of chocolate and then rise as late as possible on Boxing Day and then proceed to endure another Christmas-like day but without presents.

Everyone lives in hope of a happy, normal Christmas. But when this doesn’t happen it is crushingly disappointing and quite frankly a failed Christmas is worse than no Christmas at all by quite a long way. The nightmare that is Christmas begins in September and then once the first bit of tinsel, advert, rack of charity Christmas cards appears, the runaway train that is Christmas begins to move slowly and inexorably towards you. Even if you run as fast as you can it will still hit you, despite the overwhelming need to get away, you cannot. You cannot avoid it, because your friends, family, neighbours, TV commissioners, business owners and colleagues are all having such a great time, that I personally have to remind them each and every year that Christmas is in fact shit, but they just haven’t realised it yet. The cultural pressure has brain washed every man, woman and child into believing they’re having a great time, to the point that Hindu’s, Sikhs and Muslims are now beginning to celebrate Wintable. What a crock. Unbelievable. Don’t get me wrong if you’re a devout Christian, Christmas actually means something. In which case get yourself to church for Mass on Christmas Eve and again for the morning service. Don’t buy presents, or tinsel or a Christmas tree. Just praise Jesus to the heavens and remember those less fortunate than yourself and maybe give some money to charity. Other than that what the hell are you doing spending £1500 per child on laptops, mobile phones and toys that move and make lots of stupid noises. You’re a Christian, you should be busily rejecting capitalism at Christmas.

But woe is you if you actually work in retail. You’re not only obliged to be happy at Christmas when you’re not at work, but also supposed to be happy about it at work to customers (who also secretly hate it), and then you’re expected to get your tired, hung over, mentally exhausted self down to work on Boxing Day ready for the ‘January’ sales. You poor bastards. Shop workers also have to listen to Christmas music for eight hours a day. If you changed the venue to a prison cell at Guantanamo, it would considered torture. And let’s not forget that we are now so hooked on Christmas, that every shop along the High Street relies on it to sell us crap for the rest of the year. Christmas actually sustains the faltering economy!

There are some strange and sad facts around Christmas that get rolled out every year along with the same old dreadful Christmas songs. The murder rate goes up and the suicide rate goes down! Yes that’s right, we want to kill each other but not ourselves. How weird we all are. But don’t worry, suicide rates increase by the New Year. It seems we all hold out hoping that this year will be different. When we find it was as bad or worse than last year we finally do it.

But it’s for the children! I hear you cry. Well it ain’t for all children because according to a survey done for BBC’s Newsround, they found that over 16% of children felt that Christmas made them feel sad, nervous or left out. That figure excludes those children who believed that if they criticised Christmas that Santa wouldn’t bring them any presents. And in a poll carried out by Mental Health charity Mind it showed that 19% of adults felt less able to manage their mental health at Christmas and 25% of adults surveyed said that they felt depressed at Christmas. That’s a quarter. The elderly also suffer at Christmas with one in ten spending Christmas alone.

And there’s the month of Sundays in between Christmas and New Year. For me this is the worst bit. If you work very hard the rest of the year, you may enjoy the chance to lay in bed farting until noon and then after a serious arse scratching session, might mope downstairs and watch Star Wars for the fiftieth time. Or you might pick up the celebrity autobiography your wife bought you (oh joy). But the fact is by the sixth empty, pointless day of the holidays we all have to endure, you’re beginning to think you’d be better off at work, particularly as you’ve just lost your rag with your child for being annoying and you’re feeling guilty and a little bit paranoid about being arrested.

I’m still holding out for my ten year old nephew who I almost convinced to join me in a ban Christmas campaign, until he realised he wouldn’t get any presents and withdrew his support. He then called me a Grinch.