Peace and Goodwill to all Men or Christmas Revenge?

Peace and Goodwill to all Men or Christmas Revenge?

By

Michael Casey

Christmas is nearly upon us, its 14^th Dec 2017 today, so we all think or start to think about Christmas. Though shoppers amongst you have done it all months ago. You ticked that box. You buy 40 crappy presents for your 40 crappy colleagues you work with, but would rather not. One of my sisters used to work in retail, or in a shop in real language. She always sent and received 40 presents, 40 years ago and more. It always baffled me why this custom went on. I quiet like Christmas cards, but the 40 crappy presents always seemed stupid to me, and it still does. I wrote a piece years ago reflecting in part on this, and the film The Bishop’s Wife which had Cary Grant as Dudley the angel and David Niven in it too. By the way if you can find The Moon’s a Balloon by David Niven its a great read.

My own attitude is always please yourself, if you don’t want to, then don’t do it. Peer pressure is a load of BS, if you are not strong enough to raise two fingers or one if you are American, to convention then you should not be allowed out at night on your own. Already I’ve divided my audience in half. Wouldn’t you rather put the money in a kitty and go to a bar, or out for a nice meal, instead of getting 40 crappy presents?

Nowadays we have the Mystery Santa, where 40 people buy one present each, so you all get one nice thing. Or you may just say only spent a quid or 5 quid, instead of the 40 or the 200 quid on rubbish. It can be more fun that way. The Mystery Santa way. As for cards, I prefer the Caravaggio style ones. Though nowadays as we all have computers ecards are a growing trend, and you can get them for free.

Back in 1978, yes 40 years ago when I started as a computer operator laptops were naked girls dancing, not a PC on your lap. And people used to be impressed when you said you worked in computers, IT was not even invented as a pretentious word then, and as for Ict, was that some form of yeast infection you went to the doctor with?

But I’ve digressed. Some people who’ll remain nameless deliberately give bad presents, things that should have been binned and not even donated to the Charity Shop. Is this a weird sense of humour? Like giving toilet paper to somebody who spends a lot of time in the toilet. Not caring or knowing the person has kidney problems, yes this really did happen. Though in today’s world of the Internet I get Funeral Plan offers from Birmingham Alabama because somewhere along the line, the title of The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker comes up and so I get emails offering funeral plans. I also get Life Insurance offers too from USA. With my health status if I can be pretentious, nobody would cover me. Though Christmas and the New Year will bring many such offers. I am in Birmingham ENGLAND, so if you want a Test and Keep person I am your man, but you’d have to send it to Birmingham ENGLAND, as I told somebody in USA only last week.

Going back to presents, a pair of new oven gloves, large size would be really useful. So are any of you out there ready for Christmas Revenge, as they say Revenge is Best Served Cold, and Christmas is Cold after all. What would you send and to whom? A gross of red pens to your maths teacher, and in UK we say maths with an S on the end. A dictionary to your English teacher, though you’d glue the pages together. Enough of being called Moron or Cretin by the teacher, I think Brewer in my class nearly 50 years ago was called that. If I’m wrong Brewer you can always buy me a pint of Stella Artois. As for me in the same class I was always asked was I supporting the wall or asking a question, as I used to sit in the corner by the wall in 1B.

The best kind of revenge is success, so you visit your old school in a chauffeured Bentley and give cheap sweets to the teacher every Christmas and half terms. And a very large box of expensive chocolates to the janitor. You know the janitor will share his with the staff, as for the cheap sweets the janitor finds them in the rubbish unopened and takes them home. So the meek do inherit the earth, or sweets anyway.

Now cakes with curry powder in could be given, but that would be classed as poisoning, as tempting as it might be. Bastards do deserve their just rewards, but revenge is the Lords as they say. However Fr.Michael was a kind confessor, but as wicked as the devil if you crossed him. So when he heard about the toilet paper present he was incensed and he knew how to exact the Lords revenge.

On High Days and Holy Days there‘s lots of Holy Water to be thrown and people to be blessed. The incense is wafted everywhere too. Fr.Michael spotted Dennis sitting full of drink propped up in the last bench just by the door. Dennis had come in last as drunk as a bobbo, ready for his yearly blessing and Christmas look at the crib. Only Fr. Michael blessed everybody then decided to empty the last of the Holy Water pale over Dennis. Dennis was drenched. Later on Fr. Michael decided more incense was needed by the back door of the church to keep evil away, so Dennis was engulfed in incense.

Beer, Holy Water and Incense don’t mix,so Dennis puked. Earlier in the night his friends had said, Get It Down You, It will do you well. Now the Priest led the chorus from the Choir, Get it Up it Will do you Well, as Dennis puked. Fr.Michael’s aunt had kidney problems so when he heard that Dennis had given toilet paper as a present he was livid. He knew Dennis would never come to Confession, so Penance had come to him.

Well I’ll finish for today, and yes oven gloves are a useful present, if it were attached to a 4 bed house with two bathrooms, one downstairs now that would be perfect. Though Health really is the only thing worth having and I speak from experience, for as you all know I have total recall, but only for stories. So wherever you all are on the Map and it could be Singapore or Canada or any place in between, please be kind this Christmas and as many of the days of the rest of the year too.