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Roger Rabbits with |
“Come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,” pull yourself up to the table, tuck a napkin in the top of your Santa shirt and gorge on a veritable Christmas feast of false hope, abstention, dysfunction, whacko gifts, loose bowels, sneaky cheap Santas, and being upstaged by Jesus.
How annoying on a day of good will to all men. Anyhow, there should be, could be, something here for everyone on this Christmas menu.
Pie in the sky
“All I want for Christmas is a farm bike.”
Yeah, sure! Aren’t we being just a trifle unrealistic kid.
“A blood red KingQuad 400 please. $13,609 + GST.”
That’s the serious Christmas expectation of one deliciously cheeky, 8-year-old bundle of freckles and attitude I know.
“The thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.”
Just say “no!” and she might go down the “emancipation of minors” route – when a child divorces its parents.
Christmas is no Christmas
For one family, there’ll be nothing under the Christmas tree except pine needles and carpet beetles. Because their place is present free space.
“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me ….nada, zilch, bupkis.”
They don’t do the buy, wrap, open, enjoy stuff. The kids are asked what they’d like to DO, not what they’d like to GET.
How would you break that news to the kids? How would you explain you waved Santa right on by your place?
They celebrate Christmas with family experiences rather than material things – like a walk and homegrown food. Just ignore the rapturous cries wafting over the fence as the kids next door open their presents.
“Mum, I want to go live with the neighbours.”
“Joy to the world ….”
A Yuletide truce
He hated Christmas Day because it involved choosing – not presents, but which of his divorced parents to spend the day with. Then one Christmas Mr United Nations brokered a truce to have them both over to his place. He thought they could all be grown-ups for the day and be nice. “Jingle bells, jingle all the way!” So on Christmas Day his father left home in Waikato headed for Tauranga armed with gifts, peace and goodwill. He got to the top of the Kaimai Range before he had to stop and vomit from the stress of it all. Then he did a uey and went home. “All is calm, all is bright.”
No-thinking-required present
She asked for them. And got them. A possum trap and a window vac. Sometimes the day of giving can be quite overwhelming. The husband was delighted his wife had saved him choosing an appropriate present for her and high-tailed it to Mitre 10 before she changed her mind. Meantime his envious mates were trudging and grumping around perfumeries and jewellers’ shops. A year later the window vac was still in the box. “Waste of bloody money” complained the husband, forgetting, of course, he could use it too.
Dangerous gifts
Dangerous because of the serious injury you risk when presents are thrown back in anger at you.
“I don’t want an iron for Christmas,” she insisted. “I don’t want any sort of appliance, or gift that tells me the giver requires me to perform household tasks.”
She wants “indulgences” for Christmas. Indulgences? On the other hand, another colleague was happy to buy herself a $1700 Dyson with a “To Me” tag. “Cos…” she explained,”it’s a serious bit of kit, And I wanted one.” “Ding dong, merrily on high.”
No wrapping required
All he wanted from Santa was some bismuth subsalicylate, or any antacid, because bacterial toxins had seized control of his gut. “Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la” Christmas Day vomiting and diarrhoea. The couple had chosen Cairo for an exotic, interestingly different Christmas. But he got ambushed by a street snack of green vegetable and dodgy chicken stew. Ended up in hospital with gastro-enteritis. He reckoned his “eye-of-the-needle Christmas experience out-stank the donkey in the nativity scene.” I think he means an all-round unpleasant experience. He also cancelled the camel ride to the pyramids because the rocking and swaying motion might have triggered more spontaneous and unpleasant ‘motions.’ “Sleep in heavenly peace.”
Never trust a Secret Santa
A year later it still rankles. There was a $50 ceiling on the cuzzies’ secret Santa. But Bloke being a big-hearted bloke spent $80 on the flash ‘gym re-hydration kit.’ A water bottle I think.
In return adult Bloke got a “kid’s s****y” little toy drum kit” which made an infernal racket when switched on. Probably $15 or $20 worth. Why? You were had Bloke. Unhappy Christmas!
Seventy lost birthdays
“Lost” because Jesus was born on his birthday, December 25. Or vice versa. So for seven decades while the world celebrated Christmas Day my mate’s birthday has been largely ignored, upstaged, sidelined.
But when a senior executive of a big London company learned of this mischance of history, he dispatched a gift bearing motorbike courier in blue leathers to mate’s digs. It was an expensive enamel snuff box with 24 carat gold plated lid and the inscription “Happy Birthday.” Someone cared. And didn’t feel quite so marginalised.
