Forgive us our sins

as we forgive those sprouts forced upon us,

as we take solace in comedies past

that actually made us laugh

and music, sweet beautiful music

we could hear in our heads,

if not actually out loud,

as Carol Singers belted out tunes

to songs that only made sense

when sang in key

and with snow nestling on the ground,

freezing the lump of dog poo solid

and Granddad pretending

that he could see Santa

on the roof

and then being flustered when

you pointed out that was Dick Van Dyke

and that a Reindeer would know its rights

under Union law, that a night on the tiles

with an obese man collecting Sherry

and mince pies was against the minimum wage

and who does Rudolph think he is,

after all isn’t Dancer more qualified

having taken all the necessary exams

rather than some random deer who

just happened to put his big nose into a

traffic lights stopping beacon,

talk about jobs for the boys…

 

…forgive us for believing that children

would play quietly in a corner,

perhaps far away from the radio

as you try to sneakily listen to the football

down one discreet earpiece

on Radio Five as great Uncle Norman

thrills his audience once more

of the day he went to Margate

only to find that he didn’t like travelling

beyond a full drinks cabinet,

“Oh those were the days”, he would shout gloriously, waking

everybody up including your wife’s Aunt Beryl

who found his manner undignified

and besides it made her drop her

full glass of gin all over the dog

and her stained dentures into the gravy boat…

 

…forgive us this day in which we gorge

ourselves to the point where Cadbury’s

is on twenty-four hour production.

Forgive us this day our over zealous

impulse buying on Boxing Day where owning

a handbag costing a couple of grand

becomes the new black

and trying out for a rugby scrum

in the middle of a department store

is not seen the same as the detestable

mindless football violence

seen at grounds in the seventies and eighties,

Queen’s Park Rovers nil British economy four billion,

and that the women who popped out

for a nice pair of gloves

gets handy with her fists

as she suddenly spies a fifty inch television

she can fit in her bathroom

going for a couple of hundred quid…

 

despite already having one…

 

Forgive us for turning the world

into a place where a reindeer

is expected to work Christmas Eve,

where pulling a sleigh,

albeit with carbon emissions rated zero

as tested by Volkswagen,

is to be accepted, where the shops

open right up until breakfast

Christmas Day morning and then

only close whilst the toilet is as flushed

as the till,

forgive us

for we know not what we do…

 

scratch that,

of course we do.

Ian D. Hall 2015