Casual Christmas

I tried to be oh-so-modern and do all of my Christmas shopping online this year. On the plus side, I've avoided pikeys, malls and fake cheer for most of the month. Unfortunately, not everything has arrived in time.



This afternoon my mother is roasting a duck for two. Tomorrow my sister has invited me over for curry. That's when I'll see my father too. (I don't actually know what he's doing today but he has friends... I alternate between divorced parents on an annual basis.) I have presents for none of the above. Ironically, I have presents for Alice but we broke up as boyfriend/girlfriend recently and we won't see each other until New Year.

I hauled my ass to Sainsbury's on a lunch break last week so my colleagues did get Christmas cards. I chose a virgin-mother-and-child design which put the cat among the secular pigeons. If you're going to "do" Christmas I think you should do it all, is all. I bought some fancy chocolate biscuits too but they came home with me when we realised we had too great an abundance of food at the office.

I'm out of milk now and have four cigarettes to last until the shops re-open.

This morning I'm drinking black coffee and reminiscing about when there were only three TV stations and each pulled out their best-ever programming on Christmas Day. The I.T.V. network has four channels to fill nowadays which may explain the triple bill of Police, Camera, Action! today. News 24 has documentaries looking back at the year in conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Lebanon whereas Sky News has The Day The Whale Came To London. Other piss-poor highlights this year include a clip show called Best Ever Christmas Films (which must be cheaper or quicker than actually showing a film) and the complete World At War series on the History channel, to annoy whoever just got the boxed set from Santa.

Naturally, the jewel in the day's programming crown is the new Doctor Who episode. And don't the B.B.C. know it. There's a Making Of feature at 1300, a radio show from the show's set in Cardiff, and the feature broadcast at 1900. Plus you can watch a charity concert of music from the show all day via the magic red button on your remote control. I forgive them tugging the teets of the franchise quite this much while the output is still this good... though perhaps I should come back to that statement post-Catherine Tate.

So 2006-12-25 is really just another day with a different amount of driving. Whatever your plans, remember to remember those less fortunate than ourselves (with our internet and our food and our warmth and our television) today. Happy misappropriated winter solstice festival!