Our Tannenbaum Fell Over

Christmas. ‘Tis a time to be jolly, hang holly, but most importantly…celebrate folly, what with all the random behaviour that suddenly becomes the height of normality in amongst all the frantic, frazzled, frenzy that is: Preperation.

To begin with, everywhere starts to crawl with Santa’s; tall ones, short ones, believable ones, ones with beards apparently sprouting from beneath their chins, or above their noses…even reclining, grumpy ones, watching the cricket in the basement of Harris Scarfe…is it not a bit confusing for small, small children?

Also, a mystifying (and somewhat mildly terrifying) phenomenon begins to occur more and more frequently…

Wild Shoes begin to appear at random along otherwise normally wholesome, shoe-free streets. (I’m not making this up – in the last three days, two, single shoes have appeared along Colley Terrace. One, a wedge, and the other a boot…a male and a female…Shock! Scandal!) By nature, The Shoe is a sociable and yet monogamous creature – it’s with its sole mate from creation, and generally they remain paired for life. So what is it about December that makes some shoes break away from the conditioning of generations, leave their partners behind, and their owners hopping mad (in the most literal sense) and act upon a most unseemly desire to hang out in the gutter…all alone?!?

…or are they?

It’s a Christmas tragedy.

However, alas, the festive season strangeness does not end here. People too, experience a shift in behaviour, and decide that language is a thing for all other times of the year, and begin to communicate through grunts – or silence.

Setting: Shoe store
Scene: Man is craning in a desperate, yet attempted subtle manner at the shoe rack that I’m standing directly in front of.
Me: [knocks over shoe while putting one back] “Whoops”
Man: “Ngh.” [craning continues]
*long, drawn out, crane-filled pause*
Me: [finally]“Do you want to swap places?”
Man: …
*pause* [continues to crane]

I think this language breakdown in the lead up to Christmas is due to the “Law of Conservation of Communication,” which hypothesises there can be only so much communication and sound transfer happening at any one time in the world. December rolls around, and with it comes carollers, cajoling us all with their confusing tales of “These Three Kings” (who for years I thought were from a place called ‘Orientarr’) and extremely alliterative Hark-Happy Heralds. The point being, what with all this extra vocabulary being bandied about, it reduces the amount of words the rest of us are able to use (because, like energy, obviously there is a set amount of speaking and noise-making in the world, which can neither be created nor destroyed)
Hmm…it’s a strange time. But, nonetheless:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! (for Monday)