Bugger off Santa Claus and give me some peace and quiet!

A humourous take on Santa Claus

By Stanley Collymore

 

Look Santa! I know perfectly well that it’s Christmas and

what you’re up to now are the sort of things that you

obviously delight in and most evidently, as well,

thoroughly enjoy doing; but just because it’s

your specific thing and loved by some

doesn’t mean that everyone similarly

wants to be actively engaged in or is even the least

tolerant of these very much quite inescapably in

your face and rather bullish shenanigans. And

therefore, cautiously putting it politely and

diplomatically, or as I rather prefer to do

candidly; when it comes to the latter

grouping of persons, then I most

determinedly, and decidedly,

count myself among them.

 

So in my case please do me and yourself at the same

time one great big favour and just bugger off! And

not because I abhor or for that matter personally

have anything whatever against Christmas per

se; for truthfully I very much to the contrary

contentedly and unhesitatingly do confess

to being an enthusiastic fan of old Noel;

and while my willingly admitting this

might appear odd as Hell to you in

the circumstances of what I’ve earlier been saying,

have none the less always and distinctly for me

been religiously and socially celebratory that

way. However, I do take a not unreasonable

exception to some obese and pensionable

person, absolutely nothing at all against

ageism mind just the droll incongruity

of the entire thing I readily confess,

dressed up in a ridiculous costume

of red and white rampaging across my roof in what

at best is obviously a most old-fashioned sleigh

pulled by a herd of discernibly hyperactive

reindeer. All well and good for the lot of

you and every likeminded person who

patently thinks that it’s a barrel fun.

That said though, when I checked

my individual situation with my

established insurance company,

Direct Line, I was explicitly

informed that any damage

caused either directly by

you Mr Santa Claus or

your reindeer just was

not covered by my

home contents or

any of the other

possessed by

me personal

insurance

policies.

 

© Stanley V. Collymore

22 December 2015.

 

 

Author’s Remarks:

I was seven years old when I had a falling out with Santa Claus that would become permanent. Earlier that year and having been exceedingly good throughout it, as I normally was, I wrote to Santa asking him if I could have a cricket bat engraved with the names of any of my three cricketing heroes �" I’m a staunch cricket fan �" the 3 Ws, Worrrell, Weekes and Walcott, or preferably all three of them if he could manage that.

 

I subsequently in return got a letter from Santa Claus promising me that he would fulfil my wish; and pleased as anyone could possibly be by the fact of knowing that a special wish of theirs would be forthcoming I couldn’t wait for the onset of Christmas, which was always a festive and religious season that I looked forward to and thoroughly enjoyed, to happen. Furthermore, this time I told family members and friends who asked me what I wanted them to get me for Christmas that the choice as usual was entirely theirs but they were not to get me a cricket bat as Santa Claus was already doing that.

 

But Christmas came and went, and while I got loads of presents from lots of people Santa Claus never delivered on his promise nor did he bother to send me an explanation for what he did, or more fittingly didn’t do. So instead I wrote him a terse letter telling him what I thought of him and calling him a miserly prat. He must have taken umbrage to that but I didn’t care and readily forgot all about him.

 

Fast forward to my early adulthood and Santa Clause with his reindeer recommenced driving his sleigh over the roofs of whatever home I was living in; ridiculous really as none of them ever had any chimneys, a specific thing with me. And with good reason! I’m a staunch environmentalist and eschew polluting the atmosphere with the residue from fossil fuels and instead opted for insulated lofts, solar panel roofs and state of the art central heating, so there were no chimneys attached to any of my homes for this rotund man to embarrassingly climb down, than Heavens! Nevertheless, he made up for that with his dry runs; with him accompanied by his reindeer creating an unholy din over my roof tops I must say!

 

Thankfully, all this happened prior to Christmas itself, which as it happens in my case I never spend in Britain; as I’d long discovered, coming not long after my initial altercation with Santa that there isn’t just the one Santa Claus but a franchise of them with their own specific jurisdiction, and judiciously I make absolutely sure each year that I’m out of the jurisdiction of that Santa Claus who cocked it up for me all those years ago.

 

And so this poem, drawing on my own experience as a child, is written for and dedicated to all those who’ve been similarly hard done by an unforgivable Santa Claus or who are simply agnostic about them. And remember this; I got over my disappointment and so will you! Meanwhile, have a cracking Christmas all of you.