In the bleak midwinter...

Oh, it's grim up North... Not so much cold, but bloody miserable. Credit crunch is alive and infectiously rampant up here, as is the common cold... I have another. Oh yes, rejoice! Fuck off angels - hark nothing.

Mood isn't much better...

Where the hell is Christmas?!?!? Who hid it? OK, so I'm not religious, anti it at times, but I've always been a fan of Christmas I'm afraid. Forget what the name means, and forget the cynic (sometimes me...) who calls it consumer-time or tells us all that we shouldn't neeeed a date to celebrate family and friends. Humans are lazy, they need a fucking date in their diary. 25th December is as good as any.

So where the hell is it? In their haste to save their necks the shops have forgotten to even put in the scant amount of effort they used to, to bring Christmas cheer. Just the world SALE emblazened everywhere. Families struggling (including mine), are cutting back drastically, so there's no Xmas spirit at home. TV has put in a bit of effort, and although I know I'll enjoy it as much as everyone else in my family, it makes me sad to think that what myself and much of my family are looking forward to this Christmas is watching Gavin & Stacey, The Royal Family, etc, Xmas specials. Fucking hell.

OK, so a lot has changed... I have refined tastes - both in the literal sense (veganism) and aesthetically I'm very different to the whole of my family too - in books, films, music... you name it! But, despite that, I felt a month or so ago, that it'd still be a good fun time, and that any time I'd start looking forward to it...

That time never came, and I'm still not in the Christmas mood now. I'm bored. I'm ill. I'm bored. 2009 seems to be rushing forward, and I was welcoming it not long ago... But now I feel cautious, and feel that perhaps I don't want to let go of 2008 after all, despite it's difficulties. Ah, can't stop time, or turn it back... Only Superman (apparently only the once) can do that!

But one more thing is looming in my mind...

Is this the year I've truly become an adult? Is this the year I don't enjoy Christmas? Is this the year I start my slow, inexorable plunge into the miser...???

Maybe I'll be visited by a few ghosts soon... Bah, humbug!