Holiday Season

By Alex Allen

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Now that Christmas is well and truly over, we've been left holiday-less for a while. Have you ever noticed how much people hate Christmas as soon as the new year starts? All the Christmas cheer, all the good will, putting up the decorations, walking in the snow, gone! Instantly! 'Get that fucking tree down! Put the wrapping paper in the loft, I don't want to look at it! I can't eat any more mince pies, if I see another indian samosa selection pack I'm going to be sick!'. That sort of thing. Of course, we're not completely holiday-less. Tradition and consumerism have ensured that the period between January and December isn't completely barron. In this article, I'm going to talk about a few of our ridiculous holidays that I just can't get on board with. For some reason, this country loves pancake day. You know that feeling when you're in the staff room and parade an opinion on something, politics, sport, anything really, and find nobody else agrees? I faced angry recriminations from three women for criticising the Double Decker bar only yesterday, what can I say? I'm just not a fan. But forget that,try slagging off pancake day and see what happens. Seriously. This is just one of our many pointless holidays. My experiences of pancake day are three hungry people watching one person eat their pancake at a time, because there are never enough pans or hands to cook four pancakes simultaneously, and more the point nobody wants a cold pancake. In your head you imagine piles of pancakes with jars of chocolate, syrup, sugar, lemon and all other manner of delicious things to put over your pancake. In my house, this never happened. This isn't a tale of childhood batter related trauma, it's just reality. The mother takes it upon herself to sacrifice herself for the good of the family. She alone will make all the pancakes. As the other members of the family eat their pancakes from staggered starts, essentially everyone is either standing up, just sitting down or somewhere in the middle, she attempts to eat and cook at the same time. Is this really fun? Are any of us really getting any enjoyment from this?

And then there's Easter. For some, Easter has huge religious significance, it's one of the highlights of their year. But for the many atheists amongst us, there is no significance. For us, Clintons, Hallmark, and others created some sort collosal ficticious rabbit that would galavant through people's gardens, destroying shrubs, uprooting trees and generally making a nuisance of itself. In normal circumstances, this would surely be considered a bad thing, or, a fucking good barbeque. Instead, this rabbit has the good grace to dispense chocolate eggs, and more recently, stuff, material goods for people. Even as a child, I just don't understand how I would have bought this, it's completely implausible. How is this rabbit dispensing these eggs? With the opposable thumbs it doesn't have? Where's the link between a rabbit and an egg anyway? It's a nonsense! Somewhere along the line we completely forgot why we have these holidays, and they just become opportunities to exchange stuff and own more new shiny things. At least Halloween has the good grace to acknowledge that it is essentially based on blackmail. It's just 'give me sweets or I'll smash up your house', that pretty much sums it up, doesn't it? Yes there are costumes, but the basis of it is a communal threat. In this country most kids have no interest in the costume or the sweets anyway, they just want to break stuff. Easter, well that's rather more 'yes the ressucrection of Christ was good, but you know what, it'd be better with chocolate and a Nintendo Wii'.

As for April Fools day, this just seems like something a hilarious work colleague came up with to justify swapping the sugar and the salt in the staff canteen with hilarious consequences. Apparently, unless you complete your prank before midday then it doesn't count. Or, of course, you could just not do it at all. I mean, actually, don't. Because whilst there's the potential for carnage, the reality is people taking the the staples out of staplers and other disappointing efforts. Work endorsed fun is always something that should be avoided. Helen is wearing a funny wig all day for Comic Relief and will I sponsor her £2? I'll tell you what, I'll give her £5 to burn that wig and never, ever mention it again. That's how you combine good will and get something out of it too, Sue. You give a little you get a little, you see? Personally I think that as the days begin to get longer and the weather gets better, that's relief enough from the nine til five for me.