Love and hate, having and not having, and wishing I was a kid all over again...

Every year, the same thing happens.

We trudge through eleven months after the start of another New Year…and then we rush like Blue Mary Hell towards another Christmas, full of gifts and booze and holidays and disappointment.

It costs us a bloody fortune that we don’t have. And even if we did have it…it would take the whole of the following damned year to recoup the damned cost of it all.

I hate it.

I hate the fact that every time I switch on the telly, I see ads asking for more and more money to stop children starving in a third, fourth, or even fifth-world country.

I hate the fact that the ads are timed to coincide perfectly with every plate of food I shove in my mouth.

I hate the fact that donkeys, full of sores stocked up with building materials and close-ups of weeping eyes, are paraded in front of our eyes in an effort to make us reach for our wallets.

I hate how Christmas has turned into a world of haves and have-nots…of affords and can’t affords…of the next big thing or the one thing you’ve just got to buy.

I hate how fewer and fewer Christmas cards are sent each year, only to be replaced by impersonal greetings via the bloody internet.

I hate how the spirit of Christmas translates into anything with a sky-high alcoholic content… and the survival rate of the average liver gets lower every year.

But…

I love the idea that, for at least a couple of days every year, some of the people populating the planet feel good about themselves and each other.

I love the idea that, for at least a couple of days every year, the charity coffers are full enough to make sure that those in need have enough to survive from one day to the next…and the next…and the next.

I love the idea that, in a world overflowing with too much of the wrong stuff, somebody’s always there to make sure that the right kind of stuff is spread around.I

love the idea that every time I switch on the telly, I see ads asking for more and more money to stop children starving in a third, fourth, or even fifth-world country. It’s our planet. If we don’t fix it…who will?

I love the idea that I can listen to Christmas Carols sung by primary school kids and have to surreptitiously wipe away a tear or three from my eyes.

And I definitely, positively, absolutely love the idea that if we didn’t have Christmas, some bright spark would invent something just as good (or better), so we can tell all the stuff we hate to go directly to Hell (with no detours).

Or at least go somewhere dark, and deep, and decidedly unfriendly. Where children don’t laugh, and the sun never shines.

Every year, the same thing happens. I count the minutes until the fat man in the red suit arrives.

And I wish I was a kid all over again…