52. Dare I say it? It's nearly Christmas!

WE'LL FEEL NAKED AFTERWARDS.

Our place is decorated - discreetly as you might expect from a bloke who believes that too much is worse than none at all - and the half Christmas tree (imitation Canadian pine allegedly), which is as big as our little living room can take, is all lit up and looking festive.
We stopped believing that you simply have to have a real tree some years back when the beautiful specimen we bought fresh from a dealer had been sited in the large living room of a bungalow we owned at the time.
After I had festooned it with goodies and three lots of lights, one of our cats came in and pissed up it.
We had to re-site it.
It looked good in the front garden, though, and all the neighbours enjoyed it.
That cat was an ASBO candidate who would bring back two dead rabbits a day from the surrounding fields.
I remember remarking that it would have served him right if the lights had been turned on.
He wouldn't have bothered, though.
He was the sort of cat who would have blown all the fuses and walked away unscathed.
The cat Shadow laughed when I told him the story.
Anyway, the decorating's all done now.
Well, dare I say it? It's nearly Christmas.
News reaches that the PC brigade are trying to have the description Christmas holiday abandoned in favour of the term Winter holiday so that other religions are not slighted. What bilge!
I am a devout non believer.
Not R.C., Parsee, buckshee or Pharisee.
My old mother avers that I shall never get to heaven to which I respond that I am relying on it because heaven will surely be full of the sanctimonious sods I have been avoiding for years.
But I begrudge nobody a share of the joy that is Christmas.
The tree goes up, the lights go on, the decorations are sorted, the cards are written, the turkey is ordered - and the trimmings, the booze bought, the mince pies, the Christmas pudding, the cake, the big box of sweets, the C.D. of festive songs...
Friends, of whatever persuasion, and family are welcome.
Then comes the sudden realization that another year will soon be over.
The decorations will have to come down.
The tree, too.
We will feel naked for a while afterwards.
Everything will be back to normal.
So let everybody enjoy a happy Christmas while it lasts.
Even the P.C. brigade.