December 25 (Christmas Day Saturday): Your Mother’s Got A Penis. Merry Christmas. I wake up around 9.30 in the highest of spirits. I’m tired but feeling good, feeling like Scrooge after his three pronged epiphany.

Off the back of a limited amount of sleep, I set about getting myself together on this morning marking the birth of Santa. For the fourth year running, I wake on my own and spend the morning slowing pulling together all my Christmas booty for the day ahead. There is something wonderfully peaceful about Christmas morning on your own, it shouldn’t be/feel right but it just does, one of those rare moments where all feels/seems still away from the craziness of the rest of the world. Outside the window, there are no dissenting sounds or heavy industrial pounding voices, not even any cars.

I pull out the wrapping paper and my presents and bless my senses for staying sober (thus without hangover) for facing this. And it is really, a genuinely enjoyable chore, I think I have done well with Christmas presents in the end this year. I come across the Bob Dylan CD I bought myself when unable to find a CD for mum and I listen to that, the first time in months I have actually had the time and desire just to put a CD on to listen to.

Dad comes on MSN and wishes me a Merry Christmas. It’s all good and non-stopping today. He calls on me just as I am almost done and about to head out.

I put on my Blogger hoody for the very first time and I feel I look good in it; it makes me look relatively young and goes pretty well with the “beard”. My view is however coming through/via the most flattering of mirrors I own.

I head out for home just past 11.30 and the weather is astonishingly beautiful. Some had said it might snow but they were talking bollocks. I tear out of the blocks, drive past the Layer Road football ground and down past the offices of my ex-employers (boo hiss piss). For such a supposedly “dead” day, the roads are shockingly busy, full of flocks of families heading towards various homesteads, generally their parents I would imagine. Seems I am not alone. I find myself running slightly late, feeling that turning up at home past midday on Christmas Day to be ultimately a poor shout. As I near home, I hit the Weeley crematorium roundabout where it appears the car in front of me is giving me the finger. Merry Christmas to you too.

As soon as I arrive home (only a little past midday), the front door opens and the dog comes flying out, wearing tinsel around his neck (poor little bastard). I arrive home feeling jaded, like one of those characters in Beautiful Girls or Garden State returning home. Immediately my parents comment on my hoody and my “beard”. My parents like the hoody (bang goes the street cred on that then) but do not appear to be found of an unshaven me.

Arriving at a good time, with lunch almost prepared, I find myself having a weird experience as I stand in the kitchen with mum and as we attempt some small talk, she looks as if she is about to burst out crying prompting me to be/feel likewise. On a rare occasion in my life, I find myself able to talk my way out of this and soon I remedy the situation but I have to admit, it freaked me out.

Dinner is fantastic, when mum can be arsed she is a fantastic cook. And its actually a pretty fun lunch this year, we take the piss out of most things and look forward to the new year whilst also wondering why on earth the dog isn’t pestering us for scraps (instead he lies in his basket half asleep in between giving us a look every now and then). This will be the last Christmas in this house and it is a shame because on the whole they have been pretty fun ones.

Today I finally get around to getting my digital camera out and actually taking it out of the box. Fortunately it is idiot proof and within minutes I am able to work it (although I do take a while to learn you have to actually press the button down hard in order to take pictures). And the video it takes is fantastic; I finally now have some audio/visuals of the dog for our future memories.

The annual Christmas message happens at three and the old boot Queen goes on about one thing or another and I have to admit I leave the room for this arse. Instead, I sit at the kitchen TV watching Marge Simpson give her Christmas message on Channel Four. It’s ok, not as amusing as I was expecting but she does say one of the funniest things I hear all year when she thanks the UK for it’s efforts in taking over the world with the USA, considering the UK to be Mini Me to the USA’s Dr Evil. Genius.

We finally begin opening our presents shortly after, how obscene is it to wait so far into the day to actually open our presents while when I was younger I would be opening gifts at 3AM, twelve hours earlier than 3PM. Rather than being the result of a very strict homestead though, it’s more a product of a can’t be arsed homestead. Thank God for mum having some enthusiasm.

We have the annual fun of watching the dog go mental opening his gift (as usual ANOTHER squeaky toy) before he turns his attentions to opening and eating our gifts (hey he’s welcome to mine). Dad also does his annual trick of guessing and dismissing all his gifts before he even opens the wrapping. And mum sits in the middle of proceedings, organising and dictating the opening of presents without getting much in the way of gifts in return (each gift she gets is next to miraculous because of how crap at present shopping Dad and I are).

Uninterested in my gifts (whoops, forgot to ask for anything this year) I begin texting people, wishing them a “Merry Christmas” as I really begin to enjoy myself exceptionally. And happily/joyfully most people reply with likewise wishes.

When the dust settles on the gift giving, this year turns out to be a success. Happily this year (perhaps for the first year) I gave better than I got and really scored points with my gifts and amusingly bought Dad the same CD than mum bought him (the crappy Dire Straits Best Of). And of course, he didn’t want one copy, let alone two of it. My haul turns out to be mainly clothes (socks, underwear, long johns, pyjamas!). Amusingly the sizes of the garments, as usual, vary from medium to extra large and annoyingly I get more socks than pants when, quite frankly, pants tend to get a messier/dirtier/filthier than socks don’t they lads. Mum also gets me the usual set of Simpsons’ trinkets and baubles which she can never go wrong with and to cap things (on the silly gift front) here she buys me a copy of the Little Book Of Hard Bastard Jokes. Is she finally getting to know what I am like?

The afternoon TV turns out to be a fucking joke post Top Of The Pops (complete with mum’s usual comments about which female popstars are fit and dad perving in agreement). We sail out the afternoon watching Christmas themed songs on VH-1 (after my request to watch Seinfeld on Paramount gets immediately pooped on). Band Aid comes on and Dad makes the classic comment “instead of sending them food, they should send them condoms to stop them breeding”. Fucking hell, I go red in embarrassment. Then however, perversely food of thought, I wonder: in those dire circumstances in Africa, who on earth would be up for a shag? Time to leave planet Alf Garnett I think.

People sleep the afternoon away while I, bored with the TV, potter about on the computer before returning to the TV in an attempt to watch the first Harry Potter movie. I approach it with enthusiasm, surely so many people can’t be so wrong (well, I suppose they are with the Lord Of The Rings movies) but the film just grinds me down, it’s overlong and as a result fucking terrible. Maybe if it were shorter it would be digestible but this length, no way! And then at this point I give some thought to all those people that have texted me today to say how they have got the Lord Of The Rings boxset. Ouch. Ross however beats everyone by getting all The Sopranos boxsets on DVD. He’s a rich man today.

Christmas TV turns into The Vicar Of Dibley and this is a sure sign of desperation. The old man and I watch as her and the drippy bird talk about getting off with lesbians and me and Dad can only comment: “look at the fucking size of her!”. Before the “special” ends (yeah, special needs), I’m allowed to switch over to BBC3 where they are showing Little Britain all night. This turns out to be a rather embarrassing act as having such old school parents, they just don’t find it funny (I guess Ma and Pa are the people the show sets out to offend). Mum laughs heartily at it though, she’s always up for a joke where a crazy woman pisses out of her cunt into a pond. No laughs for them however at the Mr T joke. Nevermind.

At a loss, flipping through the Sky channels (the olds have digital baby!) I end up on Fight Club being shown on the Sci Fi channel. Why on earth is this movie on Sci Fi? What fucking element of Sci Fi is in this film? Nonsense. But as per usual, the film is a great watch….for five minutes. Wow, I remember the last time I watched this movie in the Christmas season, it was a Sunday night and on the Monday the twat audit manager Drew (a descendent of the Kranky clan I believe) accused me of physically assaulting him, to the point of taking me to the police station. As TV (and particularly this movie) appears to be such a bad influence on me, I promptly change channels.

Dad goes to bad around this point, his Christmas Day ends with everybody happy. Mum and I settle down and find the Absolutely Fabulous Christmas Special. It has a couple of interesting guest appearances from Nathan Lane and Laurie Metcalf but then mum asks the mind-blowing questions: “what is this?”. And for the next half hour mum claims to have never watched, or even heard of, Absolutely Fabulous. This is twilight zone-esqe stuff, especially coming from one such a fan of the Vicar Of Dibley.

The night begins to draw a close as I start to settle in/on my bed for the evening: the front room sofa. More exploration of Sky finds Ricky Gervais’ Animals on E4. Mum and I sit watching that and thankfully mum at least knows who Ricky Gervais. However now she takes turns in freaking me out by laughing heartily at Ricky Gervais joking about giving panda bears Viagra and coming for twenty minutes.

Eventually she gives in and goes to bed, leaving me to my own devices. I attempt to watch the remainder of Animals but fall for the land of nod myself. The best film of all Christmas Day actually turns out to be on at 2.20AM (technically Boxing Day) as Channel Five show the very festive Richard Linklater movie SubUrbia. I attempt to stay awake/up for it but after my bouts of sleep lately (or rather lack there of), I’m out for the count within minutes of the lights going off.

Christmas 2004 is over.

np: Dynamic Syncopation – 2 Tha Left