17 December 2004
Christmas comes this time each year So be ye full of Christmas Cheer!
And other such genius poetry abounds. We shall leave aside the inevitable "comes each time this year'' nonsense for now. After all, I may jeer, but we can all shed a tear, knowing the fear of not having the ear for these things, of being nowhere near finding one mere, dear word to rhyme with cheer round here - a pain in the rear, for sure. I'll fetch us some beer.
It's the 'cheer' that we're wondering about today.
What the hell is this Christmas cheer? And why have I got to have it or else be called names?
It's
Cheer: A noun
Definition: happiness
Synonyms: animation, buoyancy, cheer, cheerfulness, cheeriness, comfort, delight, encouragement, exuberance, gaiety, geniality, gladness, glee, good cheer, hilarity, hopefulness, jauntiness, jocundity, joy, joyousness, light-heartedness, liveliness, merriment, mirth, optimism, solace.
Well, what's wrong with that, you miserable bugger?
Nothing, I suppose. I mean, I like a list of words that can be used to substitute happiness in a sentence as much as the next misanthrope. I don't have a problem with being happy - I just can't work out why I'm supposed to be happy.
Because it's Christmas, silly!
Just because it's Christmas?
Yes!
*Sigh* So I should feel happy just because I should.
Not because the baby Jesus was born?
Well, you can if you like, but seriously, who cares! It's just Christmas, this has nothing to do with babies! It has to do with it being Christmas!
Christmas has to do with being Christmas, you say? Next you'll be telling me it comes this time each year.
Ooooh! It does! Isn't it great?!
Are you drunk?
No, silly! I'm just full of Christmas cheer!
Unless Christmas cheer is a euphemism for sherry, sweetheart, you're not kidding anyone.
I have a theory about that, actually. 'Christmas Cheer', used often, is interchangable for 'Christmas Spirit' which (no-one would argue, I think), is simply a popular term for 'Brandy':
"Gosh, the vicar's full of Christmas spirit, isn't he?"
"I'll say, he's just propositioned the Nativity set. Again."
And, to be fair, Christmas cheer does seem to come upon people mainly when they've been imbibing Christmas Spirits. This is when they start to wear red pointy hats, and tinsel around their necks, and sing things loudly. And it is because (usually) someone as provided them with a free bar. And it is because they may be getting a couple of extra days off work, and it is because they are happy because it is Christmas, and they have to be happy.
And yet you get these little patches of people - we don't hate Christmas, we like our families, we're ambivalent on the idea of religion, not really angry about anything - and yet we can summon up 'The Cheer' as easily as we can knit with our feet.
i.e Not very easily - because, mainly, it is a lot of bother, and we can't quite see why we should.
The cheer-less are terribly unpopular with the cheery.
"You're not excited? ... But it's Christmas! "/ "Bah Humbug, eh?" / "Oh, cheer up, sourpuss, or Santa won't be coming to *your* house this year, now, will he?" (No)
But for the naturally cheerfree, battered by the cheery this time EACH YEAR, there is a natural defence.
You see, the cheer hangs about in the air, and, breathed in, the body of the Christmagnostic attempts to repel it with copious amounts of bodily fluid.
Cheer embodied in the body of the notcheered is called snot.
As the cheer works through the body of the former Christmeritic, it settles in. Deeper and deeper the closer to Christmas it becomes.
So, if you are one of us (and stand firm, stand firm, soon it will be New Year, and no-one will expect us to get excited for no reason)(Well, alright, yes, they will, but lets not mention that right now) and next time someone asks you why you do not seem to be displaying adequate Cristmas Cheer, then sneeze on them. If you canot sneeze to order, simply blow your nose on their pashmina.
They will see for themselves.
You have cheer dripping from every orifice.
Dripping, I tell you.
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