Christmitis

Well it's that time of year again. Strange shiny decorations have been slowly creeping into shops. Caterpillars of tinsel munch their way along supermarket counters. Electric cords strangle signs and doorway entrances, like amazonian vines. Effagies of old men with bloated bellies and faces hidden by beards lurk ominousy in corners. More and more impersonators of the above appear silently in arcades and public spaces, luring small children onto their laps with promises of presents. One by one, small trees shoot up in office corners, restaurants and even invade the smallest of living rooms, filling spaces with their dark spiky masses.  More heavy vines of electric cord creep insidiously around doorways, crawl across the surfaces of buidings, and slither up lamposts which strain beneath their weight.  Spiked with lights of blood red or vile green, they blink. And wait. 

Meantime a change has come over the people. As though the sineous cords have wrapped themseles around their lungs, they become agitated and out of breath. With hurried steps and unseeing eyes, they surge en mass to shopping malls, supermarkets and high streets. With jaw fixed and mad eyes, they claw each other for their goods. Perfume box sets, bestselling novels, armfulls of boxes of chocolates are swept to tills and litle bits of plastic are hurriedly poked into machines. Like ravaging termites the people gut the shelves in sight. Shiny boxes cascade from Thorntons, a mountain of jumpers boulders its way from Marks and Spencers, Sainsburys leaks a river of wine. And across the city, a great shadow forms as a tidal wave of socks prepares for its descent.

A distant whine marks the arrival of swarms of drones, circling the rooftops with their ammunition. One by one they drop their packages on unsuspecting victims. Christmitis has arrived.
The disease has spread wide, sparing only a few flint-eyed Scrooges, saved by their stinginess. Across cities, houses of the victims are marked by a circle of plants that appears on their front doors, the symbol of the plague. 

The symptoms? Unrestrained spending, an inability to curb one's appetite, an unhinged thirst for alcoholic beverages, and a tendency to burst into song in public spaces. Those in later stages of Christmitis sprout woolly jumpers, novety earrings, and in the severest of cases; grow antlers. 

The Zaras, Bershkas  and Tescoes across the country are heaving, display counters ramsacked, as the sick surge en masse to public spaces, blindly buying. On the 24th, shop assistants wait apprehensively, and tremble. The supermarket race begins and wild-eyed shoppers hunt turkeys and brussel sprouts. Hundreds of pairs of eyes feverishly scan shelves for the last boxes of crackers and botles of Prosecco. 

The penultimate day of sickness is marked by a state of delirium in which the victim stays awake until 3 am wrapping every item in sight and squirrelling them away in the corner of their room. 

The final day of the disease is marked by an eating frenzy. Overpreparation is to be expected: one victim typically prepares enough food for twenty people. The first part of the day is a manic cooking frenzy, spending hours preparing foodstuffs inedible any other day of the year, such as the flavourless and gas-inducing brussel sprouts, and the second part in an eating binge. 

The bacchanalian feast is characterized by unrestrained eating and drinking, red faces and the sprouting of paper hats. Food related dinner party conversation is peppered by bad jokes, until the meal is cut short by the inevitable family fight. This, normally triggered by a brave comment by a quiet member of the table being accepted as an invitation to fight by the reddest faced member of the table, and can be verbal, physical or both. 

Final stages of the illness can include spontaneous acts of charades, bankruptcy, and dangerous levels of honesty at the family level. To avoid Christmasitis in 2016, conversion to Hinduism, Islam or Wicca is recommended, and do your best to avoid television sets and people in general. 

To healthy holidays this 2016!! x