What's It Got To Do With Him?

Oh! please no. It’s still October for god’s sake. It’s a criminal offence. I’m still avoiding conkers on the pavement outside the school. My dahlias are in flower and the thin duvet’s still on. You can’t possibly be putting that up now. What the hell is wrong with
you?

Am I the only one? How is it that nobody else seems to mind? Perhaps they do and just daren’t say anything. Come to think about it, who would you say anything to anyway, the hopelessly-out-of-kilter police? I’m not sure standing outside Wilkos in the precinct and screaming ‘it’s still October for God’s sake,’ would really
achieve much. Wouldn’t stop Bing Crosby dreaming.

There were twelve of us in the bus queue. We were early and I counted. Force of habit I suppose. Joyce from next-but-one nodded across at meas she slumped into a seat and dropped her bag onto the floor. Bursting it was, with rolls of festive wrapping paper sticking out like defiant fingers. Up yours they said. We don’t care if it is
October. She saw me looking, raised her eyebrows, as if to say I know, it is isn’t it. Poor Joyce. I knew her when she could cycle to Goole and back in a day.

We used to have assembly every morning. Never missed. Said prayers and sang hymns. Set us up for the day it did. Left the hall humming. Apparently, they don’t now. Afraid of upsetting the Muslims and the Sikhs. They don’t sing hymns and they don’t sing carols either. Doesn’t stop ‘em banging on the door in mid December with their hands out, telling me they’re carol singers. ‘Sing me a carol then,’ I say and they just groan and walk away. Works every time.

The tree appears first, a four foot artificial in the bay window, from Home Bargains. I saw the box by their bin, twenty percent off and still too big to fit in. A week later, Les appears with his ladders and spends a Saturday afternoon dangling off the guttering and fixing his plastic Santa to the chimney. Silly old sod is seventy three.
He’ll kill himself one day, like that Emu bloke did fiddling with
his aerial.

Then it really kicks off. Flashing dicks on the table time. My glow is brighter than yours. My meter spins faster than yours. Neighbour after neighbour trying to outshine each other, literally. Looks like Las Vegas on steroids. Every windmill off Spurn Point overheating, trying to keep up. Only three of us in the entire street with enough
sense to keep out of it. We stare out at this orgy every night and wonder how the nativity ever came to this.

I was in the queue at the Post the other day and Les happened to be in front of me. I asked him if he rang the national grid before switching on every night, just so they knew why all their dials had gone haywire. He wasn’t very amused. Told me that we all needed cheering up after lockdown. I asked him how three million kilowatts scorching my front door every night did that, especially as his curtains were closed and he couldn’t see anyway. He mumbled something as he turned away. ‘Miserable sod’ was all I heard.

* * *

Second day of the New Year and he’s at it again. Too early this time. Scary Santa, flashing walking sticks, luminous reindeer, inter-stellar laser probes. All packed and gone. Nipped across for a quick word while he was trying to untangle his flashing gutter fringe. Told him he’d got it wrong, yet again. He looked at me blankly, so I put him straight. Gave him the full monty. How we were celebrating the nativity, not the invention of electricity or bacchanalian excess. That we should observe a twelve day period from Christmas Eve and that being seen from space for two and a half months before the event was not exactly what Jesus had in mind. ‘What the hell’s it got to do with Jesus,’ he said as his annoyance with the tangle visibly increased. ‘When he pays my bloody electric bill he’ll be entitled to complain. Until then he can mind his own
bloody business.’ I retreated to safety for a little quiet contemplation.

As I packed away my own fairy lights the other day, I couldn’t get Les’s words out of my head. I’ve come to the conclusion that he may have a point. What the hell has it got to do with Jesus any more?