Warming Up

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We're going to Somerset for Christmas week and there's only so much room in the car so we exchanged our non-Santa presents this evening. I don't know why Santa can't deliver all the presents, especially the bigger ones, as he has infinite room on his sleigh, but the mean old git is only taking a certain amount to the Air B n B we're staying in.

I guess he's annoyed that we are asking him deliver to a different address this year. And we'd already messed him around by moving house last year. Look mate, if you don't want to deal with the admin then don't take the job.

Anyway it's quite nice to spread the present getting over a few days and it was only a few toys and grown up presents tonight. And again Santa has a weird cut off where he stops giving presents to people once they classify as adults. I think I was 18 the last time he filled my pillow case with stuff. I put the pillowcase every year but nothing. It's a harsh lesson about you being on your own once you've left home. After all the whisky and mince pies I've given to that bloke.

Phoebe was very excited about the present she was giving me, as she'd made it herself. It turned out to be a mock up of an identity parade, like in the Usual Suspects or the best cold opening of all time from Brooklyn 99.

Watch that as many times as you like and you will still laugh every time.

But my line up wasn't of humans it was three different balls and the ID parade was to try and identify the evil ball that had tried to kill me.

Of course I loved it on every level. It turns out that it is genuinely better when your kid has made you a present themself. She had taken the time to make this, source different balls and keep it hidden from me. Plus she looked so happy with her joke and happy that I clearly found it funny and charming too. Again, she's got a lovely left field sense of comedy - a bollock identity parade isn't route 1, but also is very adept at artistic projects and it's a lovely looking object even if you don't get the potentially edgy and sick humour behind it.

Nearly five years ago I got that shaky phone call from my GP and thought I might not see any more Christmases or my kids grow up. But now it's our fifth Christmas as a monoball and I have a decent shot at seeing a few more and I have an almost 11 year old who is happy to satirise my cancer and call me a testicle Cyclops and make beautiful, funny art about a horrible thing that we all went through.

That's better than anything Father Christmas could come up with. That guy has so little imagination that he needs a fucking list to help him. Come up with your own ideas mate. I had no idea that I wanted a testicle police line up, but now I've got it I couldn't be happier.