It’s (not) Christmas (any more)!

Christmas is now but a distant memory, with only a cupboard full of unwanted chocolate and ever-greater discomfort around the waist to remind us it was ever here.  

Lots of amusing things happen over Christmas, don’t they? And yet because we’re “away from our desks” over the period and because once we’re back at them Christmas is the last thing anyone wants to think about, we rarely get an opportunity to dissect them.

Well, fret no more! ODHSNM once again strides out where the mainstream media fears to tread and features a Christmas-focused article in mid January.

Much like Tulisa, One Direction and other glitzy celebs, the Pope tossed off a book for Xmas this festive season.

And "The Infancy Narratives - Jesus of Nazareth” did not disappoint with its no-holds-barred, warts-and-all, nothing-left-to-the-imagination account of how the Christmas story is not actually true.

You sit on a throne of lies

It may come as rather a shock to you to hear this coming from His Holiness Benedict XVI – accustomed as we are during December to driving past empty-looking churches festooned with passive-aggressive posters insisting “if it wasn’t for Jesus you wouldn’t have ANY Christmas”.

Particularly in the light of the various absurd articles of faith the Holy Father has not yet seen fit to debunk.

But if Jesus was not actually born on December 25, then what is stopping us from having a staggered Christmas season?

Not that sort of staggering, you cheeky monkey you.

No, why can’t we just choose when to celebrate it? For example, shortly after the January sales? Everyone doing it at once is highly inefficient. It creates queues, allows businesses to ramp up prices, makes us all take a really quiet week in the office as leave etc. Plus the weather is always shit.

If we’re all getting the date wrong anyway (and I refer you to the Pastor aeternus of 1870 – the bit on Papal infallibility), Jesus would presumably not mind if we all got it wrong on some other, more convenient date of our choosing.

I told you this year’s theme was going to be calendar reform. We’re starting early.

Speaking of “starting early” one of the best things about Christmas is the expectation that you will – nay, obligation to – drink alcohol during the (admittedly scanty) hours of daylight.

WHY?

Not only that, but you are entitled to drink things that you would never consider drinking at any other time – such as advocaat, sherry or banana liqueur.  Or indeed red-coloured paint thinner with clove oil in it, also known as “mulled wine” at this time of year.

Nothing quite beats the feeling of settling down in a chair thinking “it’s 3pm, I’m hammered, I may well fall asleep and nobody is going to give me a hard time about it”.

And if it wasn’t for Jesus, you wouldn’t be allowed to do that so you really should go to church to make it up to him. He looks a bit annoyed.

But really, Christmas is a time for the kids (and if it wasn’t for Jesus, you wouldn’t have any kids).

What I really want to know is, when did it become necessary to have a set of wire cutters about your person when sitting down to open kids’ presents?

I have seen nuclear reactors less comprehensively sealed and 50-storey buildings less securely anchored than most of the things our boys got this year.

A plastic horse we got for Tancred (retail value, I dunno, about £5?) was (i) in a cardboard box that was (ii) taped shut inside and out and then (iii) attached to the packaging by tightly-wound wires around each foot and its tail.

The whole thing is completely crime-proof unless you...oh, I don’t know...STEAL THE BOX AS WELL.

As it was, my finger ends were bleeding raw by lunchtime from repeated attempts to separate box and plastic lump. 

Jesus really doesn’t like all that packaging. He’s tutting and pursing his lips right now.

But if you look round at him, he’ll pretend to be doing something else. 

Is there anything, readership, you would like to share about Christmas? Perhaps you bought ten lighters for a euro and some batteries at an English market in Germany? Or maybe you wonder why the official canon of Christmas songs ends at around 1986? Let's have your amusing observations below.