As it turns out, I have an article due in next Wednesday, which is nice to know. Would have liked to have known sooner but hey! It's on the subject of loathing Christmas, and I'm undoubtedly gonna add more to it, but here's a preview.

Please note: When you see me on MSN and I say 'Busy', that means DON'T BLOODY TALK TO ME UNLESS IT'S IMPORTANT!!!

On The Twelfth Day Of Cringemas.


It's a time of magic, bonding and love for all the peoples of the western world in some guise or another, and for our cozy little island it's what occupies retailers minds for 4 months of the year. Yet I can't help but get this deep sense of foreboding about the festive season. What could possibly set such a negative reaction within me? Well, do read on.

Christmas is a time of joy, love and mass alcoholism. The three great pillars of British life today, so it would seem. Everyone has their own experiences of Christmas, and from how it gives most people I've spoken to a giddy glow in their cheeks, I'm assuming their experiences have been positive. And for the whole, so have mine. So why would I choose to take a negative stance? I suppose, personally, it's an accumulation of a multitude of negative aspects with the holiday that just make me shudder. To kick off with, the overall clichéd tackiness that the season can't help but come bundled with. We've all been there. Come the start of December every family in the country are like wound coils that shudder with anticipation, and a week later they release the kinetic energy of the holiday and begin to festoon every empty space with the glittering boas known as tinsel, that shed their shimmering skin all over the floor. Followed by dragging a plastic pine that has accumulated the dust and cobwebs of 10 months neglect in the back of a dark, dry cupboard. Finally, an array of colourful garlands festune the ceiling, and if you really want to drain the national grid, up go the garden lights, and your home is temporarily transformed into the Blackpool illuminations. Ty Pennington would be proud.

I would imagine most families would wake up the next morning to find everything still in order and carry on with their lives, however there will be a few families like me who will have suffered some form of indignity as a result of trying to brighten up the otherwise gray and withered season of winter. For those of you reading now in blissful ignorance to what I mean, allow me to fill you in. You would awake to find those garish garlands you had suspended from the ceiling the night before had during the course of the night given up on life and thrown themselves to the floor, as well as the timely intervention of a night prowler, no less your cat who will have tried to eat the tree, only to send all 6ft 3 of it toppling into your mothers prized cabinet, ripping the ornate doors off their hinges on contact with the synthetic leviathan. And just as you think things have to get better. They suddenly get worse. For instance, should you dare to step out of your house, you will undoubtedly find that inflatable Father Christmas you bolted to the roof the other day has come afoul of a stray wind and unanchored itself, as you look on in pity to see it's deflated remains strewn in a sorry heap on the road, with tire marks running across it's once bulbous belly.

Of course, I'm just talking about what is in all fairness just a run of bad luck, so lets look more to what is inevitable in the season. Lets cast our minds to September, the month where Summers end is imminent and millions pack their bags for what is sure to be another eventful academic year. The shops also kick in around this time, advertising prize present ideas, Christmas decorations, and sunny retreats to oversubscribed resorts, whilst the locals get exploited for every bit of land they have. At this point I feel compelled to remind anyone to whom this has slipped their mind, but typically, Christmas is in December. Now I was not the best at Maths, but even I can just about manage to work out there is a four month gap. Well, not so much a gap as a hernia really. I'll be honest with you, I can't truly work out why this has such a negative impact on me, but I hate how everything suddenly has to shift attention to something thats four months away and then only lasts three days. Any avid Catholic will tell you is considerably longer, but we all shamelessly did away with that years ago, and settled for pumping hard earned money into presents for family members you wouldn't even know existed if it weren't for Christmas. And yes, I hear you say 'it brings families closer'. But lets be honest with one another, it really doesn't, does it? You sit around these relatives on the day with a smile so plastered it'd be better applied fixing cracks in the bathroom ceiling, the entire act of merriment and good will is as fake as Rooney's marriage. And yes, I'm sure there are those of you who's families you love dearly, but theres always that one black horse who, if the choice was given to you, you wouldn't talk to. Christmas therefore is a time where free will is rescinded and individuality is a taboo word. Welcome to the Borg collective.

-John Lewis.