The rituals driving me Christmas crackers!

THE RITUALS DRIVING ME

 CHRISTMAS CRACKERS!

YES, folks, less than two weeks to left to that dreaded day when Santa comes down the chimney and all our money goes up in smoke. 

Charles Dickens may be as dead as a doornail but I blame the silly old fool entirely for the sanctimonious, sentimental and commercial overkill that Christmas has become today.

I’ve yet to meet anyone who will admit to enjoying the Christmas period. We go to parties we claim to dislike. We eat turkeys we say we cannot stand. And we put up decorations which we then sneer at. 

We buy presents on shopping sprees we describe as sheer hell and send cards which we agree are a waste of money. Then we invite boring relatives round on the day itself to watch so-called "festive" TV shows we denounce as rubbish!

 

Then there are those frightfully jolly jingles they play down the phone when you’re put on hold and the non-stop cacophony of Christmas hits from the 1970s inflicted on shoppers laden with over-priced gifts for relatives. Not to mention the constant repetition of grandad’s only seasonal joke: “Don’t forget your umbrella, it might rein-deer!” 

Christmas may be a time for children (bless the little beggars) but it’s a poor excuse for carol-singers and other do-gooders to legally pick their parents’ pockets of any change left over after buying noisy Nintendo games and sickly selection boxes. 

If Smith on Saturday had his way (bah humbug) every idiot who dons a silly red hat and wishes a Merry Christmas “to one and all” this year would be boiled alive with his own plum pudding. 

And I know just where to put that sprig of holly...

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THUNDERBIRDS ARE GONE!

APPARENTLY the demand for Thunderbirds toys is currently so high that thousands of kids will be disappointed this Christmas. 

The top seller is a model of Tracy Island, supplies of which are said to be stranded on container ships somewhere between here and Asia. Sounds like a job for International Rescue!

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(This column was originally published in the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph on Saturday, 12 December, 1992)