huntblog

*tap* *tap* is this thing on?
It seems as if the closer we get to Christmas, the more people I know go insane. The likely candidates, or "brink balancers" have toppled into the proverbial cauldron well and truly, and the last couple of days a few less predictable cases of Christmas insanity have manifested themselves in people I know. Why? What's so manic about people come Christmas time?

Perhaps it's a climate thing. Maybe people go into stores and see (really poor) imitation snow/tinsel, reindeer, fur suited redmen, pudding and various other winter paraphenalia, then they step outside into the scortching heat of a 35 degree December Afternoon. That's enough contrast to unbalance!

Or maybe it's the futile quest to catch up with every-single-person you've ever known, that tends to be attempted around this time of year. Email has undoubtedly made this worse, by making promises of catch up's all the more accessible, while the actual catching up, is painstakingly difficult to fit into the pre-Christmas schedule.

Then there's Christmas cards. I admire the phil stance on Christmas cards; To put in lots of effort to make one Christmas message in an entertaining format for all his friends. Rather than scrawling a default message on 30 cards (and limiting or extending your cardlist to match the hallmark packet sizes). Girls are of course endowned with some jedi-like ability to manage card writing and get off a touching personal message on every card... so I guess this paragraph is mainly a guy thing.

Anticipation. "WTF!!?!?!11" I hear you type? Anticipation is good right? Well there's nothing to make you go mental like anticipation. Chinese torture artists perfected the art of it with their highly popular water torture technique. Christmas for some people I know is like a yearly drop of water on their forehead and every year the anticipation of presants, holidays, food, rest is just too much and their brain switches off for a few days until that burning relief of the water droplet in Christmas day.

Don't forget about the burned out workers as well. Christmas is a plethora of public holidays and 4 day weekends as a result (this year anyway). These poor souls who crave the sweet nectar of rest and relaxation haphazardly drive off on boxing day for a few days of well earned rest and "me time". Unfortunately they are usually met with a sea of other escapees, trapping themselves in a good hour and a half of traffic just to leave sydney. This amplifies the angst and usually induces speeding out of sydney to compensate for lost time. Within a couple of hours the infestation of police radars, and double demerit points have worked their magic and the getaway becomes the angsty disaster it was always destined to be.

These are all factors in the Christmas insanity... but the worst and most volatile element of all that sends more people mad than anything else, is of course last minute shopping. If anyone reading this blog is thinking of last minute shopping for me, then I'd be happier for you to wait until the new year (buy me something nice then), it seriously isn't worth the mental damage you're doing to yurself by wondering around a crowded shopping centre, traversing between the same three shops picking up the same items wondering if sam already has a cow shaped cookie jar, or if he'd want one in the first place. Then there's the Christmas music. So bland. So uninspired. It's amazing they can turn songs of worship like carols, and Christmas pop hits into elevator music. I actually walked around grace brothers (oh excuse me, myer) turning off various 6ft high singing, butt wagging santas. The chorus of one liner Christmas carols was starting to affect my own sanity.

So cling to the simple things! spend time with your family, throw out "catching up" and spend time with the friends you always see. Go to church if you're into that, buy next year's Christmas gifts in the next couple of weeks even. Oh, and hang out with some kids on Christmas day, then you'll avoid the seasonal insanity, and truely have a happy holidays.

Merry Christmas everyone!

posted by hunt @ 5:45 PM