Half A Giraffe

Well folks, thats it. Halloween is over, so its officially the beginning of the Christmas Season. Everything from November 1st to December 24th is just one, big, long, extended X-Mas Eve. Winter has basically been replaced entirely to celebrate and praise the Jolly Fat Guy In Red (unless you’re some kind of zealot). And as much as the The Season Of Giving is supposed to be one of loving and caring and hugging and other niceties, every year more and more people succumb to Christmas Dementia, the symptoms of which include uncontrollable rage, sudden onset OCD, erratic mood-swings and the irrepressable need to bankrupt one’s self.

So, in anticipation of the next two months, here’s a list of the top five things that may get on your Christmas Crackers, and ways to potentially deal with them.

One: Christmas Shopping

Exact Number Of People: Too Many.

Every year, more and more people start their Christmas Shopping earlier and earlier. And I’m not talking about shopping for presents (that will get its own section later), I’m just talking about the specifics of Christmas, i.e. decorations, food, clothes, etc. And every year, the crowds get more and more feral. I’ve been in less threatening mosh pits. Old ladies would just as soon snap your femur than let you get ahead of her in a queue. There is no real way around this, other than to start your Christmas Shopping as early as possible. Remember, Stephen’s Day is only 364 shopping days til Christmas!

There is such a thing as shopping too early, though. An ex-girlfriend of mine in November 2007 told me she was going to beat the crowds and start shopping for Christmas 2008. She obviously meant well, and the staff at the mental hospital tell me she’s doing great…

Two: Christmas Decorations

The noose he had made out of them didn't support his weight.

Every year, the decorations in stores and on the main streets seem to go up earlier and earlier. This year, I envisioned all these decorators waiting for it to hit 12.00 am on November 1st so they could set fire to all those pagan orange-and-black adornments, and they could Christmasify the city as soon as possible. And as annoying as that is, it doesn’t hold a Christmas Candle to decorating your own home. You try not to give in to the fact that your neighbours already have theirs up, but you don’t want to look like a Scrooge either. So you at least hold out until December 1st. And then the dreaded day finally arrives, and you spend the next 36 hours unravelling the lights and tensils, forgetting and remembering where the Christmas Tree used to go, falling off the ladder and roof putting up the outside decorations, and then budgeting your day-to-day living expenditures in anticipation of your massive electricity bill come January.

And once again, there is such a thing as too much decorations. If the FBI knock on your door because the Space Shuttle Discovery are saying they can see your house from their orbit, then its probably safe to say you’ve gone into overkill mode…

Three: Christmas Parties

We've all been there.

Are you nervous? No? You should be. You’re about to get drunk in front of your boss(es). You might plan on not getting drunk, but there’s free alcohol and very little food flowing, so your resistance is futile. Your boss is going to see you drunk, and there is NOTHING you can do about it. You might get sick. You might get angry and start a fight. You might get naked and start hugging everybody. And your boss is going to see all of this. But we both know that even this isn’t the worst thing about Christmas Parties. We know this, because there is somebody at this party that you really, really fancy, and it is an unwritten rule that if you fancy somebody you work with, then they have to kiss you at the Christmas Party. And if they get really drunk too, there’s always some closet or toilet that you end up fumbling your way into, and for five glorious minutes, you convince yourself that the stars have alligned and your dream girl/boy has fallen for you and you are going to live happily ever after. And then December 27th comes round, and you remind them of your tryst, and they look horrified and run off and then you hear that they’ve asked to be transfered to another branch, as far away as possible.

And yet there is such a thing as even this not being the worst possible outcome. I tell you this from experience, from a time when my boss and the person I really, really fancied was one and the same. Either lawyers work on Christmas Day or she had pre-ordered it, but I had a Restraining Order in my post-box on the 25th.

Four: Christmas Music

"No, I don't want to Scruuuuuuub-a-dub-duuubsssss..."

While they are annoying, Carolers seem to be more of an American nuisance, so we don’t really have to put up with them so much. But if you are confronted by strangers on your door shouting random words melodically, here is the way I deal with them: Tell them you hate whichever song it is that they are currently singing, and then ask can you make a request. When they say yes (they will, its Christmas, they have to), get them to sing a modern pop song in their haunting fashion. I usually pick a Britney song, and listening to “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by a group of old folk really is something to be treasured. If they do sing it, it’ll be totally worth it, and give them some monies. If they don’t, accuse them of ruining your Christmas Spirit, and slam the door in their faces.

However, there is something more annoying than the carolers. Its the Christmas Music. Listening to Nat King Cole (or worse, Christina Aguilera! Run, children, run away!) croon is just about the most homicide inducing thing about Christmas. And its everywhere! Every shop, elevator, radio station… they even pump it out on the streets now. My only advice is to put your iPod on and ramp your death metal music up as high as it will go (this will calm you down some), or failing that, just stab yourself in the eardrum with the closest fake icicle Christmas Tree decoration.

Five: Christmas Presents

It's ticking. And its not a clock.

I would LOVE to be able to give you all the proper advice on this subject, but I would have to write over 6 billion individual notes, so I’m going to be doing this in broad strokes.

Parents: whatever it is your kids ask for, get it for them. Even if what you were going to get them was better, they won’t care. They’ll refer to this Christmas for the rest of their lives. “When I was 6, I asked my parents to get me a plastic sword, and instead they got me a PlayStation 3. They never loved me! *breaks down crying*”

Buying for your girlfriend/wife: unless you’ve got the best girlfriend in the world who point-blank tells you over and over again exactly what she wants, then I really hope you’ve been paying attention this year. Chances are she mentioned in passing sometime in late July/early August something that she’d like, and that was it. That was your chance at getting the exact right present she wanted, and if you didn’t pick up on that, then you are royally screwed, because…

Buying for your boyfriend/husband: we are incredibly easy to buy for. Whatever the last thing we saw, thats the thing we want the most right now. Whatever it is you get us, we’ll be overjoyed with it because we’ve never really grown up and we LOVE presents, no matter what we are. “Oh wow, a remote control helicopter! Nurrrrrrr, ah-nurrrrrrrr, NNURRRRRR!!!!”

Six: Miscellaneous

You love me now. But wait til I doody on your pillow.

I really could’ve gone on a bit more about other things about Christmas that will cause many a killing spree, including but not exclusively: happy couples who are joined at the hands/lips/groins in very public places, whatever single X-Factor releases to get to Christmas #1, weird smelling Christmas Candles, having to be nice at family gatherings to your cousin that you’ve always hated, the same god-damned movies on every Christmas (“What has James Bond got to do with Christmas? Can someone explain that to me?”), the number of charity workers on main streets outnumbering the number of non-charity workers, the one thing you forgot to buy that will lead you to still be shopping at 4.30 pm on Christmas Eve, everything about Stephen’s Day (“I only bought this two days ago, and its €200 cheaper now??!!” *head explodes*), and knowing that your liver won’t have recovered in time for December 31st.

Happy New Year! Only 356 shopping days til Christmas!

Tags: christmas, funny, presents, santa claus, shopping

Posted in Staff Writer |