Nail Him!!

So, there I was, up to my elbows in medieval riverside deposits trying to find a nonexistent revetted friary quayside, when my mother rung me. She said 'I've got something to ask, but you're going to go mad.' So I steeled myself and asked her what it was. She said 'me and your dad are going shopping and wanted to know if there was any DVDs or CDs you wanted for Christmas?' She is right, I did go mad. And why? Well, quieten the fuck down and let me explain.

This year for Christ's Mass I, like Greece, implemented austerity measures in the Sotheran household. I made everyone else sign up to the idea that we would only spend £25 on each other (give or take a few quid) and we were not allowed to ask one another what we wanted. We would each have to go out and buy presents for one another that we thought they would like or appreciate and the resulting presents would be a surprise. Why did I decide this?

Well last year everyone made lists of stuff they wanted and this was the result: Both myself and my brother bought the same fucking book for my mother. It cost the better part of £20 and my copy has been sitting unsold on EBay for the last year. My brother and my mother both bought me a CD which I already had (I'd forgotten this when I made the list). My brother bought me a DVD that was the wrong region for my player, so had to be sent back. It got farcical.

This is my major problem with Christ's Mass. I love winter, but I hate this build up to the conjectural birth date of a necromancing Iron Age cabinet maker. By eliminating the need to make lists for presents I wanted I had managed to eradicate the stress of the build up towards the BIG DAY!!! Also I'm not seven years old and don't get hyper excited about the prospect of whether I'll be getting a Scalextrix or a Lego castle set. It was getting more and more difficult to think of things I wanted for Christ's Mass than it was to buy things for the rest of the family. I can afford almost everything I want. It's just another day with a week off work, which is the best part of it. If anything, Christ's Mass should be about family and eating a fuck load of food to get you through the winter months, not who can spend the most amount of money on trinkets no one really wants.

So this is why I went mad earlier, because my parents were asking me to give them an idea for a CD or DVD or book that I wanted, that I could afford to pay for myself anyway if I really wanted it. The thing is I've not even given this shit a thought since I assumed we'd done away with the need to create lists for one another, so she was putting me on the spot. this year's 'celebrations' are only a week away but for next year I am seriously considering buying a bunch of cats and stockpiling weapons and living off the land like a survivalist. Fuck your society of greed.

I FUCKING HATE CHRISTMAS!!!!

My only Christ's Mass decoration