"Jingle Bells..." - Satire again ;-))

Yesterday I still had a glimmer of hope that everything could turn out for the best. But then Christmas wasn't that close either.

I'm going through a difficult phase right now. And I'm determined to share it with the world: I haven't been into Christmas for a long time. I'm a Christmas dropout. And that's a good thing. Even if it shocks some people here, I have to come out of. The time has come.

In the past, this would have been a social disaster, I would have been driven through the village, tarred and feathered, declared outlawed ... but today I am carried by the hope that there are more people out there who are like me. People who can only partially or not at all identify with the Christmas fuss. And are therefore subject to a more or less pronounced suffering as soon as the first Advent begins. Some of us are permanently triggered from late summer onwards, when the first Christmas stollen and gingerbread are on the shelves.

For decades I have made every effort to be normal, not least for the children. Like everyone else, that is. I dutifully went through all the Christmas joy-balancing measures year after year: Crafting and gluing, knitting and weaving, baking and cooking, cleaning and decorating, various nervous crises in jam-packed pedestrian zones, bouts of nausea from mulled-wine-fusel-roast-candy smells in the dense crowds of Christmas markets, whooping and cheering, ... and at some point I just couldn't take it any more.

The first few times I had to celebrate my non-Christmas in secret. At my home. And without the neighbours noticing. When the bells rang around four in the afternoon, I turned on my laptop and secretly watched really good films. Once even the Wacken Festival. With headphones.

"...Blooood, Blooood,
Robbers drinking Blooood,
Robbery and murder and mugging are so good.
High from the gallows it sounds
High from the gallows it sounds,
Robbery and murder and robbery are good..."

Another time I passed the tedious time by Sissi-boozing: Whenever the word "Majesty" was mentioned in the film, I drank a brandy. By 7pm Bukowski was shit against me. While "Isn't Life Beautiful?" was playing, I tried to cut my toenails. Not such a good idea, I realised, when I missed my toenail by a hair and flicked it into the leather sofa. Then I was hungry from all the drinking, but I didn't want to eat dead animals that had been slaughtered especially for the feast. How fortunate that there was frozen pizza. With the hot pizza on my plate, I staggered back to the living room. Time to switch to red wine and turn away the Christmas Day Mass from Altötting....

This year everything will be different. Thank Corona. I'm not allowed to go to the Christmas market at all, so without any officially accepted G... The mulled wine stall on the market square has already been dismantled anyway. So I can't buy overpriced Christmas presents made cheaply by child labour in third-world countries from wooden stalls that play cheesy Christmas music morning, noon and night. Other expensive electronic gifts are not available this year either, because the microchips are unfortunately out due to the pandemic. I can't go out for an expensive meal either. Because everyone is probably closing down again this year. It's cheaper for the operators than hiring extra staff to implement all the G-rules that change weekly ... I'm probably not allowed to visit anyone. I'm not allowed to have visitors. I could be a happy Christmas dropout this year.

But somehow I'm still missing the kick ... until the moment I spot the reporter with his camera crew in the marketplace. I use my elbows and push aside the old woman who is about to be interviewed:" And what do you think of the latest Corona restrictions?" I put on my affected face, look reproachfully into the camera and say in a failing voice and quivering lower lip: "Well, Christmas, that's the most beautiful festival of the year. To have it taken away from us again! It makes me very, very sad ..."