Wednesday, December 06, 2006

On Shattering Illusions

On Shattering Illusions

Oh Gods. It's that Viking womanHere comes Christmas, and here comes a happy, smiling Santa with his sack. The great fat checking-his-list-twice bastard. When in your life did you realise that Father Christmas was - as you always suspected - actually your parents, or these days, some fat old bloke in a low budget department store grotto who's just had a criminal records check?

Let's face it, no kid with half a brain is going to fall for that 'Well, we buy the presents, then we give them to Santa, who delivers them on Christmas Day' trick forever. We are already being told 'Yeah, right, just give us the money' in our household over the Tooth Fairy.

And God, if it can't get much worse, it does. It turns out that the fairy in the big guy's grotto in Debenhams isn't a fairy after all. It's a vicious spear-wielding Viking, with, no doubt, pillage on her mind.

Santy can't hold out much longer.

I remember the fateful Death-of-Santa Christmas well:

I was ten, the year we spent Christmas at my grandad's.

"Here's your stocking, then."

"Oh, right. Thanks Mum."

That was the year I drunk the old geezer's peapod wine and puked all over his gardening trophies, so a memorable year all round.

Or, my brother's epiphany one Christmas Day: "Oh look, the ariel on my brand new CB radio - it's broken."

Of course, he had been using said radio for the best part of a month going 10-4-for-a-copy to all his mates, and snapped the thing off putting it back in the bottom of the secret wardrobe when Mum came home from work earlier than expect.

That was the year he gave up on Santa. He was 15.

Ho. Ho. Ho.

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