Evolution has not taken commercialism into account. When Darwin came up with his theory I'm not sure he quite understood just how big an impact Christmas shopping would have on the human race. After all, when surrounded by hundreds of frustrated, tired, angry potential customers we do largely revert to our previous incarnation as apes, with everything apart from flinging our own feces returning to our nature.
It's only this time of year when it happens. Never am I so keen to get to the front of a queue in BHS as I am in mid December. Actually, come to think of it, I never even go to BHS apart from in mid December. But the colder it gets the more often I venture into town in search of something I'm fairly sure no-one really wants.
"Hey parents, I've got you this. It's a wooden thing that holds bigger wooden things that you can put nuts in. It's impractical to put anywhere, I'm not entirely sure how it works and it looks a bit like I made it in tech class when I was 13. Merry Christmas!"
But madness sets in when you're stressed, and this is a very stressful time. I don't earn very much money (seriously. When Christiano Ronaldo said he was being treated as a slave by Man Utd I don't think he was being all that fair) so after rent and bills have gone out I'm not really in a position to then go and spend an extra couple of hundred on gifts. But you can't just not get them, can you? You can't say one year "Guys, I'm poor. I have brought you each a packet of crisps. Aldi crisps." I rather enjoy having friends and family that like me, so I probably can't use that idea. Thus madness. Thus fighting your way through the high-street to desperately spend cash you don't have on things you have no idea whether people will enjoy.
I haven't brought anyone a wooden nut holder. I came close, but I put it back because it was a wooden nut holder. If you've got one for anyone you know, sorry but, they won't like it. Take it back. Not that I'm saying my gifts will be any better, but it's something isn't it?
And that is what Christmas is about. Spending, stressing and speculating on people's tastes.
Jesus would have wanted it this way.
