The Yule Blog

Hello Yule Blog,

Just as the skull of a drink driver hurtles towards a windshield, so too we hurtle towards the weekend, chewing up the remaining days of advent, before being regurgitated all over Christmas's new frock. If you thought "The climb" was about as entertaining as trying to remove a bear trap from your calf, just wait until you have heard "Driving home for Christmas" for the 78th time while trying to get home from work in the kind of weather that would have Ray Mears running out of ideas faster than Chris Langham's publicist.

I suspect that most of you are going to assume I'll spend this blog cynically ruining Christmas, claiming I hate it, fetching a gun, locking people in a basement and generally showing as much Christmas spirit as a fire in an orphanage - how wrong you are. How wrong are you? Loads. I bloody love Christmas, every nut crackingly festive bit of tinsel, every Rick Waller creating mince pie. I get so excited, it makes me want to baste your turkey, readers. Don't let me. The restraining order remains.

I love it so much that you'll find no mention of wattle necked, gristle armed women wandering around the Co-Op, arguing viciously over which brand of fags says "Christmas" to them. There's going to be literally no talk of pathetic, whimpering 'Santa's' with twelve pence Aldi red outfits, pretending to be the wacky one at the Christmas party before going home to drink a bottle of Toilet Duck and await the host of angels. There will be nothing said of the hour long TV specials of every ratings reaping show, reworked for Christmas so that all your least despised telly funnymen do something slightly different to what you'd expect or worse, reel off an abortion of weak jokes and gurning song and dance routines that would have Eric Morecambe ripping his own fingernails off in fury. All filmed live before a studio audience. In August.

No. In fact this year, I am embracing Christmas with a new found joy. The sort of joy that I seem to see quite a lot on the face of the overly cheery old man who hides in a cave inside my local shopping mall, wearing a false beard and trying to get near to children. He seems happy. So he should be, for 'tis Christmas. Time to forget the wrangles that separate family members for the entire year leading up to the event and then forgetting that a bottle of rum might be an inappropriate gift, especially as Uncle John's managed to get down to two AA meetings a week since he had the new liver.

Christmas is also a time for children. A time for them to demand, and receive, everything their little commerically active minds take a shine to. And, it's a time for grown ups to get dewy eyed over the sight of several tea towel headed 6 year olds trying to remember the words to 'Little Donkey', a song so adorable that it seems only to exist for the purpose of making parents weep. I've never seen or heard anyone over ten singing that song. Probably wouldn't have the same emotional impact hearing it on "Meatloaf's Christmas Carols - from Hell".

While watching a fine production of 'A Christmas Carol' last week I was reminded again of not only how funny kids are, but that the spirit of Christmas remains. Just as the ghost of Jacob Marley made his first appearance to warn Scrooge of the haunting that will follow, a little girl behind me turned to her mum and loudly asked; "Is the ghost going to kill him mummy?". Her mum chuckled a bit and whispered back; "No dear, he's going to teach him the meaning of Christmas". The little girl immediately countered her mother's preposterous suggestion: "No mummy. The ghost's definitely going to kill him."

So, probably like most of you, my fridge is slowly filling with tasty looking goodies that become ever more tasty looking the more you are told that you can't have them. It's the only time of year that you have a fridge literally bursting with treats that may well give you gout just by looking, and yet for lunch you have to make do with a piece of stale bread and a fig. Even the 'sod it, it's nearly Christmas' box of Celebrations that were opened ahead of time are down to the bloody Topic's. When can I eat the cheese, the Pringles, the sausage's wrapped in bacon (pork wrapped in pork. Genius), the dry roasted peanuts? Tell me when. WHEN??? Friday? OK then.

So, trim the cake, lick the stamps, oil the chimney, stuff your granny and have a ruddy nice time. You probably deserve it. I doubt it, but I'll let you get away with it. Make sure you save me a slice of cake. Not a bit with marzipan on it though, or I'll cut your retina out with a bit of shattered bauble. Good. Like I said, Merry Christmas.

Byesebye xx