Jollity?

A Santa hat teamed with hi-viz on a worker down the council recycling centre unaccountably fails to lift the spirit. As it does on these other occasions:

• On a Big Issue seller you feel even more guilty for ignoring than usual
• On a retail employee for whom this period is a hell where every key change of I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day is embossed upon her brain
• On your grandfather in a care home who hated Christmas but no longer has the strength to fight
• On your partner asleep in the front room after vomiting lavishly in the downstairs toilet, unable to explain where it came from or how he got home
• On your child, crying with disappointment because this was all they got in the lucky dip at the Christmas Fayre which you subsidised to the tune of about £60
• On somebody’s fucking Staffy straining at its lead to bite while the owner explains she’s never like this
• In blue-and-white varieties on Man City and Everton fans for who the very existence of the colour red is a grievous insult inciting violence
• On a grim-faced manager demanding extra work from everyone because there’s only a fortnight until end-of-year results
• On a grim-faced manager at the North Pole demanding extra work from all his elves because there’s only a fortnight until Christmas
• On the staff at your work canteen dishing up dry turkey and bullet sprouts for the mandatory Christmas lunch
• On a hammered bloke down the pub clearly up for a fight in the car park
• On a barmaid serving the far-too-pissed, clearly counting the minutes until her shift ends
• On a scowling girl on a night out with her friends who has had the hat removed by drunk blokes as an overture to romantic advances once too fucking often
• On your own reflection in the mirror as you try to sober up, wishing the pisshead colleagues you’re with would agree to a taxi home
• On the bloke you’ve just kissed in a desperate attempt to stop him droning on in the pub
• On the bloke you’ve just snogged outside the club when you realise how ropey he looks
• On your bedroom floor when you wake up wondering who the fuck this guy who stinks of gin snoring next to you is
• On Instagram, where your fumbles with the bloke have been thoroughly documented by your colleagues who apparently weren’t as pissed as you thought

The Daily Mash

Of course.

Bah Humbug!