Robin Harvie - The Atheists Guide to Christmas

Chapter 1
Its Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas

E D B YRNE

Ive already done all my Christmas shopping for this year. I bought all my aunties socks and Y-fronts. See how they like it.

For many years, that was my only Christmas joke. Seeing as Christmas can be quite a lucrative time for a jobbing comic, a time when you can get paid two or even three times your normal fee in compensation for having to entertain people who are two or even three times more drunk and rowdy than normal, you would think I would have written a slew of seasonal zingers to keep the paper-hatted hordes chuckling into their lukewarm mulled wine. But I never did. I would kick off with my little morsel of Christmas humbuggery and then carry straight on with my usual cavalcade of jokes about smoking, drinking and slagging off Alanis Morissette. Why, I imagine youre wondering, was this so? Why would somebody who, particularly in his early circuit days, was so eager to churn out crowd-pleasing material not hit that stage with an arsenal of Yuletide yuk-yuks? Surely someone with such a pragmatic approach to comedy would have at least a solid five minutes of holiday-based lateral thinking thrown into a box of sarcasm, wrapped in whimsy paper, and all tied up in the pink bow of impeccable timing. But no.

The reason for this is simple: I have always found it easier to write jokes about things I hate, and I dont hate Christmas. Sure, theres been some dodgy stuff left for me under the tree over the years. Oh, did Santa run out of Scalextric sets? Well, I suppose Tamyanto make one just as good. The Santa Claus that came to our house did not believe in paying for advertising. As I grew older and Santa was replaced by my parents, they continued in this vein. Maybe they were early anti-globalization activists and thought they should boycott major bicycle manufacturers like Raleigh or Dawes. Maybe thats why at the age of fourteen I was the proud owner of the only Orbita ten-speed in all of North County Dublin.

It wasnt that my folks were being cheap. They were just doing their bit to fight the power of Big Bike. Im not saying that Orbita dont make a quality product, but I cant help but think that they could have built up much better word of mouth if they hadnt sold my dad a bike with two right pedals. Yes. Two right pedals. When it comes to bicycle pedals, two rights make a wrong. He did try to return the bike a couple of days later, but found out the hard way that a gift shop that wasnt there before December 1 wont be there after December 24. Well, I say he found out the hard way. He wasnt the one pedaling to school with only one foot. By the time I was fourteen, I was so asymmetrically developed it took all my concentration not to walk in a circle.

Crappy presents notwithstanding, Ive always been a big Christmas mush, enjoying the sentimentality of the season. New Year, Ive always felt, can go and shite. Maybe thats because as a kid I always used to babysit the neighbors kids so that the neighbors could go to a party at my parents house. But Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year. Even going to massa pastime I obviously have little love for if Im included in this bookwas more fun on Christmas Day because we all got to look at each other in our Christmas clothes. Those of us who got decent trendy-looking ones got to point and laugh uproariously at the chunky-knit efforts of those less fortunate. This was one aspect of Christmas where my mother never let me down. We couldnt afford Armani, but at least I never had to endure the humiliation of a reindeer on my sweater at age thirteen.

So Christmas has always been in my cool book. Ive always found it easier to make fun of holidays like Halloween, which must be a very difficult time for pedophiles who are really trying to shake the habit. Imagine! Youve got the urges. You know its wrong, so you lock yourself in the house out of harms way. October 31 rolls around and kids are knocking the door down. All of them dressed in cute little outfits, asking for candy. You dont even have to offer. Sweets are being requested. Thats almost entrapment, if you ask me.

However, much like everything else since I hit my thirties, certain things are beginning to annoy me about my favorite holiday. Sure, there are the usual headaches that just come as you get older. Not enough time to go shopping. Swearing that next year you wont leave it too late to do it online. Trying to come to a compromise with your wife regarding whose family you should spend it withyours, hers, or perhaps some neutral family that you both loathe equally. Everything gets more complicated as you get older, and the responsibilities of adulthood are always going to do their best to choke the living joy out of any occasion. Im not really talking about that. Im talking about something that I used to find exciting about Christmas as a youngster but as an older man I just find wearisome, and that is the length of the lead-up to it.

As you get older there are three things you observe: policemen are getting younger, teenage girls are dressing more like prostitutes, and Christmas comes earlier every year.

Christmas is a special time for a lot of us, and the rituals, sights, smells, and sounds that go along with it can be very effective at stirring up childhood memories of Christmases past and generating a nostalgic, sentimental glow. But if shops start hanging tinsel in October, it doesnt take long for the spell to be broken. Seriously: when you hear Wizzards I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday, does it remind you of sipping mulled wine next to a roaring fire or does it remind you of November in Woolworths?

I was in my local Tesco a couple of years ago and they were selling Christmas food in September . Thats too early. Mid-September and they had shelves of stollen, Christmas pud, and mince pies. Nobody is so organized that they buy food three and a half months in advance. Anyone who is that organized makes their own food. Just out of curiosity I pulled a pack of mince pies off the shelf to check the best before date, and I swear to you it was November 10. What sort of numpty buys mince pies that go bad in November? And dont tell me that some people might just want to eat mince pies in September. You only eat mince pies at Christmas, and most of us dont even like them then. I guess the logic is, theyre generally so foul you cant tell if theyve gone off or not. Personally, I think you may as well wipe your arse on some digestive biscuits and hand them round as shove a mince pie under my nose, regardless where we are relative to its best before date.

What nearly made my wife and I weep genuine tears of actual sadness was the fact that they were also selling single slices of Christmas cake. Imagine that. Not two slices, maybe for a couple who couldnt be bothered to make a whole cake. No. One slice. Thats a slice for you and no slice for your no pals. Its important, now and again, to spare a thought for those less fortunate than us who might be spending Christmas alone, but I dont need such a stark reminder as single slices of Christmas cake on sale in September. That means that, with over three months to go, the bloke in question is already resigned to the fact that hell be on his tod this festive season. Hes already got it all planned out. Ill have a Bernard Matthews Turkey Drummer, followed by a single slice of Christmas cake. Then Ill open the card I sent to myself. After which Ill stand on one end of a cracker and pull the other, get drunk, have a wank under the mistletoe, and pass out. Happy holidays!