[MikeSz]

Being a normally cheery soul for 83.33333*% of the year I nonetheless fall into a state of despair and emotional turmoil when the capital 'C' word is so much as whispered. This is normally because it is usually peeps its nervous head from beneath the only recently fallen Autumn leaves sometime in mid October, and if my cynical observations are anything to go by, usually encountered as a by product of some tenuously linked casual conversation about meals or shopping.

Now please don’t take me the wrong way. I love Christmas - but the actual festival itself in recognition of you know, what its actually about, and would much rather dispense with the marathon of shoppers clambering for this years much coveted 'whatever' whilst slaughtering the sacrificial lambs at the alter of capitalism, or at least the Trafford Centre, in a blind misguided and sheep like exercise in quasi-orgasmic consumerism.

Christmas meals are frantically being booked, card lists written and I am already hearing stories of how people have completed their Christmas shopping. My local Tesco is already a thronging mass of hapless shoppers eagerly availing themselves of the latest beer and chocolate offers – all seasonably packaged and promoted for Christmas consumption. And if we take a casual look at the calendar, it is shocking to see that we are still only in Mid-November. “Oooh its getting closer now” one colleague ventured to suggest to me yesterday. Actually its six weeks away and why do you need so much beer and chocolate anyway?

Town Centre lights are being turned on all over the country though the Trafford Centre has had its decorations – including seasonal metal antelopes (as Deer have to grow their horns every year I cannot imagine from the representation that they are Reindeer) on nearby roundabouts up for far longer, just in case we wanted to cling on to Autumn for longer than was allowed. And each time I drive past them a small corner of my soul dies with a painful screech before descending into oblivion.

Call me boring, but Christmas should begin with Advent – “oh no, a Religious undertone!” cry out the loony left. Not quite. I am not going to embark on a political tirade for no other reason than it simply shouldn’t matter. Christmas is what it is, and one doesn’t need to be exclusionist, religionist, or anything else for that matter to hold the opinion that if you are going to have a Christmas, at least recognise what it actually is or we’re going to have to call it something else.

For those who care I’m sure I need not continue. For those that don’t, boxes of Cadbury’s Roses are 2 for £7 at Asda.