I keep seeing blog posts about how to survive Christmas, which tend to assume that people have people to have it with. And the guides to how to survive Christmas alone often focus on how not to be alone.
It ain’t that simple.
And the guides that in essence say always look on the bright side can fuck the fucking fuck right off. Some of us are solitary, perverse and fucked up enough to know that embracing the inner Grinch works better than trying to find the happy. At least for the pressured and intense holiday fucking season. Of course, by solitary, perverse and fucked up, I meant tortured artists, geniuses and existentialists. (Or not.)
I love Christmas when things are going well and loathe it otherwise. I’m all fairweather, I know. But … it hurts and I know it hurts like hell for plenty of us maladjusted misfits, so here’s the asshole’s guide to surviving the holiday season.
Disclaimer: no offence to followers of Christ or Mithras intended, lots intended towards modern and postmodern society. And definitely no disrespect to happiness. Well. Maybe a bit.
Get Your Grinch On!
1. Your anthem, should you choose to accept it, is the Pogues’ Fairytale of New York. If you don’t already know it, shame on you and get thee hence to YouTube with alacrity and a blush. And then you too will be able to sing along: mumble mumble dunno the words mumble wait here it comes …
You’re a bum
You’re a punk
You’re an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag, you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy Christmas your arse
I pray God it’s our last
If that doesn’t make you grin, you might be reading the wrong blog.
2. Oblivion. In keeping with the sodden and rotten theme of the anthem, you could also choose to get stupidly, seriously blind drunk. It’s legal and if you’re an adult (but not an addict) maybe it’ll work for you. Hide your phone and car keys first though. If you do it right, your Christmas hangover will blur and distract you all the way to New Year. (I don’t drink.)
3. If you’re rich, you could go somewhere they don’t celebrate Christmas. If you’re an entrepeneur, I suspect there’s a gap in the Christmas-free holiday market.
4. Plenty of people hate Christmas for plenty of reasons. Google I hate Christmas or fuck Christmas or something to feel a little less alone about it. Maybe mutilated Father Christmas will make you smile (well, some kind of rictus).
5. Write bad tempered, alternate endings for those touchy feely Christmas classics Scrooge and How the Grinch Sold Out.
6. Roll your eyes at humanity’s fuckwittedness, for example these fools who reckon that after months of failing to teach their kids to stop being little shits, cancelling Christmas (but not completely) will do the trick. Muhahaha! No.
7. Start a revolution. Whatever kind you want. It’ll be safer if you just do it online. If you can’t think of a cause, try and overthrow the Westboro Baptist Church or something.
8. Cultivate an air of disdain. You can fake this by sitting around in cafés looking pissed off, with some absinthe, Gitanes and a copy of anything by Camus. Yes, the beret would be taking it too far. Curl your lip and wear black. Meet Henri le Chat Noir.
9. Irritate everyone by droning on about Beltane, Kwanzaa etc. Say “By Mithras!” a lot. Go off on a tangent about how if things had been different, commercialised Christmases would be all about the buy Mithras puns.
10. Wallow. Weep. Wail. Woe. Play Hurt by Johnny Cash as many times as possible. Draw your curtains. Don’t even bother turning on the TV, you know it will just break your heart. Sleep a lot.
However horrible it is, it’s finite.
