Christmas is some weird funny shit isnt it? Officially the celebration of the birth of the "baby Jesus", which always makes me laugh because:
- He was born September 20th 6AD*
- On most of his birthdays he was not a baby
So on the morning of the festival hijacked by Christianity on the grounds that banning it didnt work I will spend the first few hours with the cat. I describe this phase of Christmas day as "Spinsterism". The cat will mostly ignore me.
Then there's the drive over to my parents house, mostly spent singing Space Hog at the top of my lungs to a highly appreciative audience of a steering wheel and 30 empty fag packets.
Mid morning is spent opening pound shop soaps from my brother and his family, some clothes from my Mum, and what I usually consider my main present - the one my sister gets which is usually something cool and very me.
Then there's the dinner, and because family are family and not friends there will be snipes and tensions. My parents willl bicker, my siblings will back chat each other, and i'll sit in the middle trying not to offend anyone.
The afternoon my brother will come up with some business idea that involves a tonne of work for me that i'll never do, we'll promise to write a computer game together again even though we'll never get around to it, and somebody at some point will utter the fateful words, "where is my web page" like I really need to take 5 non-paying clients on to the books, or want to spend my free time doing what I do for a living.
I shall then crash out on my parents spare bed, enjoy a much more mellow boxing day meal with a hangover, then go back home and stroke my kitten.
Same every year.
*According to the best guess based upon historical information. Some antiquitean sources suggest his birth may have been around July.