Xmas poll
Bah humbug!
I'm sick of it already, having spent the last month organising chrismas lights.
I do like Christmas but can we please stop calling it Christmas. There were no fir trees in Bethlehem and no reindeer either - and I'm pretty sure there wasn't any mistletoe over the stable door! The only bit of what we call Christmas that has anything to do with Jesus' birthday is the giving of presents and even that's a bit tenuous. Everything else belongs to the pagan festival of Yuletide. The Christians nicked it and got the date wrong. (To be fair, the pagans nicked a Christian saint and got his name wrong.)
I have a plan. I propose that we give Christmas day back to the Christians stable, manger and all. It will be on a Sunday. It will always be on a Sunday. How do I do this? Because in my new calender the winter solstice will not be on a Thursday but on an extra day between Thursday and Friday; an extra bank holiday called Yuletide day. Friday will also be a bank holiday because everybody will still be rat-a*rsed after Yuletide day.
A useful property of this new calender is that every day of every month will fall on the same day of the week every year. What about leap years? No problem - and no more February the 29th either. The exact time of the winter solstice comes six hours later each year. At some point it will arrive after midnight on Yuletide day and when that happens there will be a second Yuletide day. Problem solved.
Bah humbug!
I'm sick of it already, having spent the last month organising chrismas lights.
Now that I'm awake again I can elaborate a bit more. Think what happens at the moment. On Christmas morning there is total mayhem as kids dive into their presents while parents do their best to cook the Christmas dinner. Mother-in law is sitting with her tongue hanging out - but doesn't complain because she remembers being in the same mad rush thirty years ago - and grandad has finished the whisky bottle and fallen asleep on top of the presents. Here's the new plan.
On Christmas day, which will be Sunday 25th December, children will open their presents, people will sing carols - some might even go to church - and listen to the Queen's speech. People will visit relatives where children will find even more presents to open.
On Yuletide day, which will be Yuleday 21st December, we will all eat, drink and be merry. There will be Yule trees and logs and cake and wine and mistletoe in large quantities. Lots of people will be nursing big hangovers on Thursday and they will feel sick at the thought of eating turkey left-overs but ---
There will be three days in which to recover from Yuletide and get the house ready for Christmas.