'Tis The Season To Be Lazy

Christmas?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't we have one of those bastards last year?

I went shopping yesterday to buy presents.
Surrounded by a glittering celebration of selfishness and greed I got all caught up in the atmosphere, shoved my shopping list in my pocket and bought a bunch of books for myself.

I took Phil to see the purple plastic puke-bucket that stands in for a nativity scene down at Mammon Mall (and that Joy has - quite coincidentally - posted about today). He was suitably sickened.
Kids these days don't crawl from their stinking beds before noon, so at that time of the morning the thing was all locked up. Grim and silent. Out front was a booth where festively dressed muggers would soon be fleecing overstressed parents of their last groats.
Disgusting.

Bollocks to it all.
Once again this year I shall have no Christmas tree, no decorations, no cards, no festive crap whatsoever in the house.
I'm determined to work up a good head of rantiness, but this weekend I'm pooped, so I'll take the cheap and lazy way out and - having reminded people that an anagram of "Christmas Day" is "mad, scary shit", simply re-post last year's Christmas Appeal:

Adopts Radio 4 presenter's voice … ahem …

"Around this time of year we are bombarded with Christmas appeals.
There are so many groups who are in need and it's nice to give something so that someone will have a less shitty time of it at the peak of the suicide season.
I like to slip my Big Issue guy a twenty pound note for the Christmas Issue, and my big 'pennies' jar (£170 odd this year) has gone toward Motor Neurone research, which also goes toward making me feel less shitty about myself. And there are lots of others …

This year, when you set aside a moment to consider those less fortunate, I'd like to remind you of a group who get left out year after year; snubbed and ignored, especially around the "party season" when everyone else is so happy.

So Dive's Christmas Appeal for 2006 (and now 2007, too, as I am a lazy bastard) is:
"Spare a thought for the ugly this Christmas".

I admit to a special interest here as I am a longstanding and fully paid up member of this group. Take it from one who knows: Christmas is a fucking awful time to be ugly.
I mean, I'm not hideous (well not very), but when I walk into a party and people turn to see who it is, I can feel a palpable flinch from all the unattached women in the room.
We ugs are the people who put the "N" in "hello" …
We say "Hello" to a woman and her mind forms it automatically into "Hell No".

And even if one of us somehow makes it into a relationship, we get the feeling that we're as sexually attractive as yesterday's washing-up … You know, you see it all piled up and stinky in the sink and you know somebody's got to do it, but … (shudder). No way! Not even with Marigolds on …

And mistletoe. Fuck all round that.

And stupid drunk office girls in Santa hats snogging everything that moves … everything but an ug, of course.

And stupid "feel good" Christmas crap fucking TV. Where are the ugs? Nowhere.
Except for "fake ug", like Ugly Betty … Listen, you TV twats: putting a brace and glasses on a pretty girl does not make her ugly. Ug is Ug. If TV used real ugs, nobody would watch. Just like real life … Bastards!

And "the youth of today", pretty girls binge-drinking 'til they puke, then fucking in their own stink and leaving pools of chlamydia wherever they sit. But even semi-conscious from booze, they won't go near an ug.

And sicky-sicky married couples with their "lovely" kids. Do we ugs get to be attractive married couples? Do we bollocks! So don't invite us over at Christmas; seeing you so happy only makes us more fucking miserable when we get home alone to our dark empty houses.

And girlfriends who are 'friends who happen to be girls'. I've got girlfriends coming out of my fucking ears, but they'd all puke at the thought of dating me. (Ugs make girlfriends as easily as gay guys do; we're "safe" … Hah!).

And Christmas parties? Don't get me started … really … don't.

There's no love in our ugly lives and no prospect of any, so Christmas really sucks huge ass.

We ugs even have our own anthem. The lovely Mister Mozza wrote it for us; How Soon Is Now (sing along):

I am the son
And the heir
Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and the heir
Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am Human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

There's a club, if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go, and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home
And you cry
And you want to die

When you say it's gonna happen now,
Well, when exactly do you mean?
See I've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way
I am Human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

So, this is Dive's Christmas Appeal:
Embittered, lonely, rejected, heartbroken and self-pityingly miserable as we are, please spare a thought for the ugly this Christmas.

Grit your teeth, pucker up and kiss one of us. You can have some chocolate after to take the taste away.
And you can enjoy your Christmas knowing you've done your good deed."

The scary thing is that I've now found someone willing to kiss me and not ask for money or threaten to press charges.
And yesterday, when the coffee shop started playing Christmas muzak, I did not slam my latte down on the table and march out, ne'er to return until January (as happened last year), but - much to Phil's amazement - sat and listened until I'd finished breakfast.
Okay, so it was Nat King Cole's Christmas album … Anything else and I'd have stormed out. You can't hate Nat.
But I'm getting frightened …
I can't seem to work up the rantiness I usually manage at this most sickening season.
Am I weakening in my old age?
Will I one day find myself buying tinsel?
Will I actually watch a "seasonal" television programme?

If I were to do that, the world would end.
Actually, that's pretty tempting …