Flatcap Doesn’t Do Christmas Anymore

It ain’t what it used to be, this Christmas malarkey. I’ve just come from a social site, which shall remain nameless – let’s call it Basefook – and every other status is “Merry Christmas.” MERRY CHRISTMAS? When I was a mere stripling, Christmas Morning was anything but Merry.

I meanersay, how many times have I woken on December 25th, taken one look at the gargoyle in bed with me and promised myself I would never, NEVER again drink Tetley bitter and Polish vodka shandies.

Not that I was an Adonis, mind. I remember one girl who woke up, took one look at me and fainted. I offered to make her a cuppa, and while I was in the kitchen, she made a dash for freedom. The last I saw of her she was legging it down the street, still trying zip up her skirt.

Merry bloody Christmas, my arse. I still recall the days when I would wake up with the mother of all hangovers, unable to remember what I’d been drinking the night before and wondering whether it would run the car.

Many is the Christmas Day when I was awakened with a mouth like a gorilla’s armpit, head pounding, and one of my brats hammering away on a tin drum. The only way to silence said offspring was a lurid description of where I would shove the drumstick if he didn’t pack it in.

And when you trawl through Basefook, you find people posting pictures of their living rooms, replete with decorations and large glittering Christmas tree, its lights gleaming in the highly polished surface of a mahogany dining table. ON CHRISTMAS DAY?

With a house full of kids, our living room never looked like that on December 25th. A bombsite, yes, but that would mean reclassifying your average demolition site as a nuclear wasteland.

As an example, take this picture of my workstation.

Now multiply that mess to fill the whole room and you’ll understand why Darth Vader has his lightsabre at the ready. He needs it to fight his way out from under all the crap.

I recall Her Indoors V1.0 saying it looked like a pig sty. “You’d be hard pressed to find pigs willing to live in this shithole,” I replied as I waded through heaps of torn and discarded wrapping paper and gaily coloured, now-empty cardboard cartons. If the Fire brigade had popped in for a cuppa, they would have evacuated us and declared the place a no-go area.

That picture, by the way, was taken with my brand new Nikon camera, which Santa brought me. Yes, and the fat bastard added the bill to my credit card, didn’t he? Just like he did the expensive perfume and cardigan he left for Her Indoors.

And talking of the woman, she criticised me for buying cheap plonk for the party later today.  “There’s no point buying expensive stuff,” I told her. “By the time they get round to drinking it, everyone will be so pissed they won’t be able to tell the difference between Cabernet Sauvignon and Sarson’s vinegar… so just watch what they’re putting the chips.”

Merry Christmas? Since when?