On this balmy Christmas Day boasting a beautiful +15 degrees and sunny skies, I hope you are appreciating the company of friends and family more than ever before; weather like this all but guarantees disease-laden insects will be migrating from Kansas by springtime, along with a host of invasive species the likes of which your flowerbed has never seen! (e.g. wild boars.) Enjoy those colourful boxes of chocolates and booze, I say! Purchase as many holiday greeting cards as you can and exchange them frantically - time is running out! Binge those holiday movies for the umpteenth time, for this may be your last chance to witness the exploits of Jack Skellington, Buddy the Elf, clay-mation Rudolph, Bruce Willis, and of course: Tim Allen’s immortal portrayal of Big Red himself. I’d also suggest tobogganing, though the kids may begin to wail when they realise they are nigh unusable - unless sliding down a hill of dead grass is their forté. My advice? Take the tykes et le toboggan up onto the roof; there is usually a thin layer of frost covering the shingles, which is better than nothing.
Yes, my fellow Westerners: the date of December 25, 2023 will go down in the history books as the day Christmas began to wind down once and for all. Never before has the yuletide been more vulnerable than the Year of Our Lord 2023. To hell with the polar bear, I say: those holiday trademarks of snow-covered streets, frozen ponds, and snowball fights are the real endangered species! 2000 years of tinsel and Ferrero Rocher, coming to a close! No need to raise spirits during the coldest, darkest day of the year anymore: all that “celebrating the solstice” stuff is now irrelevant. Why would I need an evergreen in my house dressed like a common whore when I can walk outside in a t-shirt and jeans, inhaling the scent of pine needles and various other conifers in their natural habitat? As for celebrating Jesus’s birthday: look, the Republican Party is all the support that poor chap will ever need - Christmas or no Christmas. Nor would he appreciate all those displays depicting him as a swaddling babe in the midst of hostile livestock. Besides, if Jesus were walking around today, preaching about sin and salvation in the nation’s shopping malls, the first group of people that would want him incarcerated are all those devout Christians milling about. Don’t deny it!
As members of the human species, we naturally can’t help but ask: Who do we blame? Some point to global warming. Others claim the culprit is someone named El Nino - a Mexican kingpin, I assume. Both are wrong. In reality, it’s just God fed up with all this nonsense. Fed up with Santa Claus, mall photographs, window displays, inflatable elves, gluttony, customer service line-ups, Mariah Carey, and a whole host of other antiquated rituals. Like a man of etiquette: God admits when he is wrong. And so, as is written in Genesis 1:1: “And the Lord got right to work” (Genesis 1:1). First off: he gets rid of all the snow and ice; a bitter disappointment to Hallmark Holiday fans everywhere. Step two: The Almighty finally decides to try his hand at the stock market, leading to an epic crash which wipes out any possibility of Christmas shopping. Everyone loses interest - well, almost everyone. The true worshippers of Christ left in the world require something far more visceral. Step Three is tailored strictly for them: a letter, crafted by God himself, hand delivered, with a single sentence scribbled on the inside: “He wasn’t my Son any more than you are.” And with that: Christmas will come to an end. The only evidence of this cherished Western holiday will be an old VHS cassette with a faded image of Jim Carrey’s Grinch slowly disintegrating in the blazing heat. Take heart: it was destined to happen sooner or later!
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