Trying Not to be Grumpy for Christmas and New Year’s!

Shôn Ellerton, December 23, 2025
Gift wrapping, holiday crowds, and endless Christmas music. It’s not for me, but it’s great for the kids.

How did Christmas come around so damned quickly?

A couple of weeks ago, the usual ritual of setting up the Christmas tree ensued. Being a scrooge, I’ve had the same twenty-dollar fake Christmas tree since 2011, and, honestly, I feel kind of proud of that. And it’s worked beautifully all these years. And, it’s a good size with three parts that fit together with ease. However, the state of the original box that it came with looks like it got torn to shreds by a wolverine and I have to keep applying patches of duct tape to keep it together.

I’m not really a big fan of Christmas, but I do play the part for the sake of my son, who’s now ten years old. However, there is something innately cosy with a tree with white lights amongst shiny globe ornaments, purple being my favourite colour on this occasion. Decorating a Christmas tree is, apparently, an art, but I just arrange the ornaments in a random fashion much to the shock horror of my mother who can spend the best part of a day to make sure the tree has a perfect and balanced distribution of all the various ornaments. And, you know, when she does the tree, it looks a lot better than what I can do.

Just like Halloween, there are some who just collect so much festivity crap, that they need to have an industrial-sized garage to store it all. I struggle to store the essential things that we need as it is! And sure, I’ve seen some amazing displays of exterior Christmas lighting, but I don’t quite see the point. I’m inside the house, not outside of it.

Having said that. This year, we are thinking of making some effort to adorn our front garden with a few Christmas lights. Perhaps we might have been inspired after having recently watched the movie starring Tim Allen and Dan Aykroyd, Christmas With the Kranks, the other night!

Unfortunately, Christmas is kind of bogus in the southern hemisphere.

Father Christmas, Rudolph and the Reindeers, snowflakes, icicles, the elves from the North Pole? It doesn’t make sense in Australia. It’s still light at 8pm and it can get bloody hot.

That’s not Christmas in my book!

I don’t want heavy plum pudding drowning in hot custard, piles of mashed potatoes, and gigantic chunks of ham or turkey laden with rich gravy.

That’s winter food.

Given the choice, I’d settle for tuna and salmon sashimi with a chilled Riesling.

And, of course, New Years Day is just around the corner. You would have just survived Christmas but now comes the task of removing the ornaments off the tree, dissembling the tree, taking down the lights, and then removing all the fake pine needles off the floor.

But is it time to relax?

Nope!

You’re still running the gauntlet with New Years coming and, in my case,  a series of birthdays which seem to run into each other closer and closer every year.

As for staying up to midnight to herald in the new year?

Not in the least interested. If there was a word for a New Year’s scrooge, I would be the first to come up with it.

And then the dreaded moment arrives.

For those celebrating New Years parties with others, there will be the striking of the clock at midnight where everyone stops enjoying having interesting conversations and then forced to gather around in circles to hold hands and sing Auld Lang Syne.

You have to be thoroughly inebriated to get through all that!

And in case you’re thinking you can get away with a good night’s sleep by avoiding the celebrations all together, you’d be wrong because half the neighbourhood then starts setting off piddly little and incredibly annoying fire crackers, sometimes until three in the morning. And then it sets off a chain reaction of startled dogs barking incessantly until dawn.

Perhaps I’m a grumpy old man, but I’m also, in general, serious in nature tending to dislike silly games, frolicking about, shouting out loud enthusiastically because others do, and, worst of all, dancing. Although, I had to force myself to dance in my earlier years to get any chance with the girls, but most of them sussed me out immediately when my dancing technique turned out to be more robotic than Robocop himself.

Now, if all this takes place at someone’s house, the TV would be on covering all the ‘exciting’ run-ups to midnight across the globe across the major cities. There will be the usual fireworks, of course. Whether it’s the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or the boats along the River Thames in London, or Times Square in New York (yawn), or the totally predictable and now, highly politically correct, fireworks of Sydney Harbour Bridge to hammer down the ideology that Australia cannot just have one flag for the nation, but a total of three; fireworks have become rather humdrum and predictable. Perhaps the most magnificent year for fireworks was during the millennium, and it was then that the Sydney Harbour Bridge display set a new high bar for fireworks. But it doesn’t seem the same anymore. And anyhow, fireworks are not particularly impressive unless you’re actually there to hear and smell them as well.

Going to New Year’s fireworks is, indeed, spectacular, but for me, it’s often a horrible nightmare to get there. Even when I was much younger, I never liked crowds and feel innately uncomfortable in them.  Being herded around like sheep amongst yobbish, noisy, drunken, and badly-behaved louts along with police at every corner telling you that you can’t go this way or that because you’d thought that you found a bit of a sneaky shortcut to get there, is the very last thing I want to do to have an enjoyable evening. The only reason that I used to go to busy places like Battersea or Alexandria Park in London to watch the fireworks during my student years was because I, along with my other friends, were those very same loutish, yobbish, and drunken people who I now try to avoid at all costs.

And it was a cheap night out because we simply didn’t have much money. Armed with cans of Stella Artois, we just got utterly wasted, watched the fireworks, and then walked nearly frozen to death home because London stopped most of its public transportation around 2 AM, leaving it very difficult to understand when and where the Night Buses go to. It would take another fifteen years for smartphones to arrive!

As for the celebration of going from one year to the next, what’s so particularly special and awe-inspiring is it? Whereas many celebrate the passing of a year so with such rigour and joy, I just envisage our planet Earth making, yet again, another ordinary pass around the Sun, much like kids riding on a Merry-Go-Round.

Worst of all is the preparation leading up to Christmas.

And that means buying presents. The social expectation of giving presents to people, even if it means wandering late around at night in a shopping mall eyeing for something camp, glitzy, impractically festive, and utterly useless to buy. For example, a flamingo-shaped coffee mug, or perhaps, a cheeseboard with a Santa Clause engraving on it.

But some people really genuinely like this stuff. We know some friends who collect and adore the very stuff that my wife and I shun. Items with absolutely no functional use whatsoever. Pot-bellied Santa Clause mugs, chains of coloured lights with Santa Claus leading the way, and those snow globes that have those drifts of snow when you turn it upside down. They’re lovely people but when they gave me a Christmas gift for my family, I was not wrong when I expected it to be something extremely kitsch and cringy. It happened to be a set of Christmas tree ornaments. These were no ordinary ornaments but rather, a series of musical boxes with little mechanical horses that go up and down. I haven’t even told my wife about them yet, at time of writing, as I completely forgot that I wrapped them up and put them in the shed. What was I to do with them? Imagine an already full-looking tree laden with ornaments being draped with twenty or so mechanically moving merry-go-round horses with cheery Christmas music. It would drive you bonkers after a couple of minutes!

There is just so much crap one can buy for Christmas.

Here’s a nice idea. You know, instead of the cheeseboard with the Santa Claus on it, why not give us the cheese instead!?

As for the ultra-kitsch, I went to a friend’s house, and his wife was thrilled to have a set of wine glasses with little Christmas trees sticking up from the bottom of the glass, for decoration. The first thing I said was not something like,

‘Oh! That looks very festive and jolly!’

Oh. No, no, no. The first thing I said was

‘How do you clean it?’

Her husband agreed with me accordingly.

I know. Such a killjoy as I am!

The Chinese, a nation which seems to ground itself in more common sense than us Australians, simply pass around little red envelopes called hongbao containing cash instead of gifts. They dispense with this silliness of passing parcels of crap which nobody wants. They simply pass along to others these hongbao should the occasion arise. I wouldn’t be surprised that, sometime in the future, when cash is dead, those same little envelopes holding brand-new crisp one-hundred Chinese yuan notes will still be circulating for all eternity. I guess storage consideration is a major issue for those who don’t have the luxury of large garages and sheds, something which many Westerners, especially here in Australia and the United States, take for granted.

Now, no Christmas is complete without the ever-repeating, boring, and overly happy-go-lucky Christmas music. It’s cheesy and it’s generally, quite horrible. For example, there’s nothing arguably worse than Jingle Bells.

Who came out with that crap?

However, it’s not all bubble gum and popcorn in the world of Christmas music. There are some popular beautiful pieces like Julsang by the French composer, Adolphe Adam, and Hosianna by the German composer, Georg Joseph Vogler, both from the late 1700s and early 1800s, who injected some real serious solemnity and beauty to Christmas music. When listening to pieces like these, especially with wonderful choral singers and a majestic organ, it also raises goose pimples in the skin.

Now, that is real and genuine Christmas music!

The Germans and Scandinavians, in general, tend to have very beautiful Christmas celebrations. Dispense with the coloured and flashing Christmas tree lights and that horrible and nasty garland and dangly tinsel foil. Replace them with lots of plain little white lights instead. Even real candles if you dare!

Then there’s the sheer sophistication of it all.

The solemnity.

The true atmosphere of Christmas with stuff that looks genuine.

Real wood. No flashing anything. Just quality.

And then there’s the village square Christmas get-together, the Christmas market, where food and drink vendors offer hot and steaming dishes, cakes and puddings, and of course, the ubiquitous mulled wine steaming hot to keep your hands and gullet warm in the cold.

Now, that is Christmas!

Christmas is, ultimately, for kids.

Kids love it and there is nothing so amazing as to watch one’s own kid enjoying Christmas. I’ve captured amazing moments on video of my son opening his Christmas presents and, to this day, he loves to watch himself on video when he was opening his presents during his earlier years. Today’s technology has made this possible, something my parents did not have. Sure, I don’t like the Christmas rush, the crowds, the hassle, but once I have everything set up at home, it is a special time. Ultimately, I want my wife and son to have fun and relaxation at Christmas.

But there’s one thing which alludes me every time.

Now, before I tell you what it is, let me just say this. I’ve built verandas, retaining walls, created amazing landscaped yards, built beautiful gardens, and a whole bunch of other stuff which I can proudly display as being great achievements.

However, I’ll tell you what I’ve never been able to do properly. Actually, two things.

Wrap a Christmas present nicely and hang a large bed quilt over the outdoor clothes line without touching the ground.

Seriously, I don’t know how women can do this!

You see, this is what happens. I tell the family that I’ve got things to do. But really, it is a secret little mission to get stuff for Christmas. Not big ticket items, but fun things to open around the Christmas tree. The big ticket items have already been vouched and requested, if you see what I mean.

I get the stuff home and I stowaway myself in a room by myself armed with scissors, wrapping paper, and clear cellophane tape. I have all these items and they are all for various members of the family. Being a very logical and methodical person, I have only two colours of wrapping paper; silver and gold. I photograph each item with the wrapping paper with my phone camera. After it’s wrapped, I add a little two letter mark to signify who it belongs to. I need to add one item for myself just to make it look more genuine. It’s usually some hardware tool or electrical accessory which I just wrap up as a Christmas present, but, to all intents and purposes, it works as far as my son is concerned.

As for ribbons and cards to further decorate the wrapped presents, that escapes me entirely. They just get thrown away in a couple of days. Bulk Christmas paper from Aldi does just fine!

However, wrapping up anything nicely is an utter mystery to me. Perhaps that’s the reason why the Japanese take great pride in wrapping up little boxes as gifts. It’s not the contents they appreciate, but you taking the time and skill to wrap them up to perfection.

When I do it, it looks like a dog’s breakfast.

Unfinished corners with the underside of the wrapping paper showing. Sloppy joints with cellophane tape being stuck haphazardly. Excess wrapping paper at the ends of the box to be wrapped and contained. And little tears because I was tugging too hard. And instead of starting again, I just patch them up like little Band-Aids. Basically, it’s geometry gone wrong.

How is it that anyone can get those beautifully chamfered corners so tight and perfect?

And that damned tape! It doesn’t break off where I want at the serrated edge and stretches itself into a mired and twisted mess which sticks to my fingers which I urgently try to shirk off. I try again, but I stick it at the wrong part of the wrapping and when I try to remove it, it rips the entire wrapping which means that I have to start all over again because a mere patch simply won’t work.

After it’s all done, the satisfying part is putting all those presents under the Christmas tree.

Will anybody notice my bad gift wrapping craftsmanship?

Probably, but nobody really cares when it’s time to open the presents.

With tears in my eyes, my ten-year-old son, the next day, gleefully says to me that Santa has left presents under the tree. He knows Santa isn’t true, but….

Does it matter?