Beware the Christmas junky! :: Wessex Scene Online

Beware the Christmas junky!

31st October 2006

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Christmas comes but once a year, but for a growing number this is just no longer enough. Long gone are the days where the Christmas spirit lingered for only two days in December. It now lasts a record four months, and tightens its grip on the calendar every year.

For those with interesting lives this is not a great concern, but for many, Christmas is a dirty addiction that has devoured their time, money and even their self-respect. I have spent minutes camped out behind display shelves and promotional cardboard cut-outs to be able to fully understand this unreasonable dependence on mince pies and baubles (the things I do for you dear reader). And having seen first-hand the sufferers’ maniacal grins as they select their Christmas cards on 1 September, all I can say is - it is not pretty.

Although there has been no scientific research into Christmasism, my observations have shown that victims are likely to be constantly over-enthusiastic, incessantly decorating any wall space, and will need to keep shiny objects, such as tinsel or fairy lights, with them at all times. Although some have blamed retailers for the surge in the ‘Christmas Fever’ as it is called in some countries, it is actually pressure from the addicts that causes shops to start selling seasonal merchandise so early. I have seen a middle-aged man throw a hissy-fit worthy of a toddler when he discovered that a reputable department store would not start selling his favourite snowman wrapping paper until October. Heper Shmurnefler, a spokesman for the store, said: "I’d certainly say that a vast number of our customers are addicted to Christmas. But we must meet their demands and if that means selling turkeys in July, then so be it."

Although it is difficult for the stores, just imagine the strain experienced by elves and reindeer in Santa’s grottos nationwide. Twinkle, an elf working in a Southampton grotto, confided that she often works 18-hour shifts without breaks due to addicts relentlessly returning for their Santa fixes. "For a small person like me," she said, "that’s tough." These usually jolly creatures are reduced to shadows of their former selves by January; some have even been known to plan deranged homicide against Santa himself. The problem has become so bad that a new Victims of Christmas rehabilitation centre has been opened, in Hawaii.

The three months before Christmas are increasingly accepted as ‘the run up to Christmas’, but it is the forgotten Christmas month of January that causes most heartache. Known by those in the seasonal professions as ‘the comedown’, addicts have been known to become aggressive over cut-price cards and plastic trees. For those worst affected have already started planning their next Christmas, and it seems that no one will stop them from achieving their aims. And yet, despite the extent of this national epidemic, the NHS still refuses to acknowledge Christmasism as a real addiction. I can only hope that I have opened the world’s eyes to this frightening phenomenon before someone, probably an innocent reindeer, though not the one with a red nose, gets hurt.