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Thursday 24th December 2020

6599/19519

"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.”
EB White
That joke would be funnier if it ended on “dies” though.

Disappointed to see the diamond hard Brexit we voted for is not happening, due to the weak politicians who could not see through our unanimous decision, but Brexit means Brexit and so that means we’ve done it. What a momentous victory for the UK and we walk away with our pride and dignity making jokes about sprouts as the weasley Europeans retire to lick their wounds, crying like babies. How proud I am to be English. And can’t wait until the UK is fully English as is our right and is just called Kingdom. And then let's split into separate households each with their own sovereignty. This isn't over.

But Boris’ other dictate that Christmas was cancelled leads us enjoying something that might well never happen again, a family Christmas with just the four of us and although I was exhausted by 2pm and needed a nap, after I’d woken up we had lovely fun with games and TV and putting up stockings and leaving a nice large whisky for Santa (don’t tell him, but I drank it - he can have the fucking milk, he’s driving).
The kids were super excited - my son said that he saw Father Christmas out of the window, so that's proof for any doubters, but well behaved and they more or less went straight to sleep which I hadn't been anticipating. For some reason they both decided they wanted to sleep on the floor tonight (Well Phoebe decided she wanted to do that and her adoring brother wanted to copy her as usual), so I tried to make them as comfy as possible and left them to it.
The excitement in the air had been palpable though and took me back half a century (more or less) to my own childhood Christmases and I remembered a time when I had been equally keen to see Santa and sat by my door waiting for him. A figure in red scuttled up the stairs and into my parents' bedroom. That was all the proof I needed. I was 28 years old.
So again proof of Santa. It would have been a pretty baller move from my dad to see me watching and then decide to put on his red dressing gown and try to pull this off. Surely I'd have recognised him as my dad. He didn't even have the beard or hat.
It was just a flash of Saint Nick through the crack in the door and I think my sister was with me telling me that it was Santa and definitely not dad. I think I knew it was dad at the time but willingly played my part.
Or maybe I dreamt all this. Seems a huge risk in hindsight.
Had fun once the kids were in bed taking part in Mark Thomas’ Christmas Eve stream, where I had to choose my two favourite Christmas Eve songs (I Believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake and Scrooge from the Muppet Christmas Carol). I was a little merry and even though this was a short chat it still felt like a bit of Christmas socialising, which has been totally missed out on this year (to be fair, it usually has been lately, but at least I have an excuse this time).


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