Anyone saying ‘Father Christmas’ instead of ‘Santy’ will have their Irish passport revoked

This week I will give my feelings on Christmas things.

Christmas pudding

Designed as a way of preserving food back when we were subsistence farmers, the Christmas pudding has somehow survived into an era when we have Percy Pigs. This pudding is so bad that people would regularly try killing it with fire. Somehow Big Pudding twisted this into a wonderful Christmas tradition. The only person in my household who likes Christmas pudding is my dad, and I think he really just wants to set something on fire. There's a kind of glint in his eye when it's burning that makes me think, There but for the grace of God...

Pantomime

"Hey, everybody, who wants a type of play that picks a fight with you?"

"I don't want such a play."

"Oh, yes you do!"

"No, seriously, it sounds stressful. I do not want that."

"Oh, yes you do!"

"Stop it. This is bullying!

"Oh, no it isn't!"

"Stop it. Stop laughing at me!"

The laughter of children

People often cite this as a magical thing, but when I hear the laughter of children my instinctive thought is, Why is this child mocking me? This is because a child is often mocking me, seemingly of the opinion that because they are 11 they’ll get a free pass. No, sir. I tell that child exactly what I think of them, a few home truths to stifle their probably Covid-ridden cough. A fellow adult will then usually reprimand me with, “You’re a grown adult!” I cleverly respond by repeating those exact words in a high-pitched mocking tone.

This is Fiona, who’s flanked by goonish fashion victims – much like yourself in Coppers

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Patrick Freyne: Chucky might be a bit happy-go-stabby, but he’ll bring back blue-collar jobs

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Warning: This programme contains insufficient sex, violence and swearing

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My other relatives gather round and pander to the giggling showboat by giving them presents to open. I don’t give them the satisfaction. “Time was I was the most important boy in this house,” I declare, poking the child in the forehead. “How soon I was forgotten. Your day in the sun will end too, sonny Jim, and then the only person laughing around here will be me – and it will be the delightfully bitter laugh of a middle-aged man.” That’s usually when I storm out of the room.

Christmas jumpers

Christmas jumpers were once something that just happened in "America", like Burt Reynolds and medical debt. Now they're lurking on every corner of our be-Christmassed land. They're the cursed emblem of the Christmas industrial complex, a jackboot for the torso, the uniform of Yuletide totalitarians, a tinselly reprimand for those of us who aren't deemed "jolly" enough. It will never be Christmassy enough for them. Never.

The one true name of Santy

When I grew up it was clear who brought the presents: a strange man with a cotton-wool beard and a long red duffle coat who hung around in a shed at the supermarket. His name was "Santy". "Santa", on the other hand, is a shill for Coca-Cola, with an ample soft-drink-guzzling figure and a long white beard of human facial hair. The only people in Ireland with long white beards when I was growing up were The Dubliners. As for "Father Christmas", using this name will lead to you having your Irish passport revoked. It also brings us into a disturbing world where your favoured mystical housebreaker conceived Christmas with the birthing powers of Mrs Father Christmas. It's too disturbing to contemplate.

Children’s parties at which real Santy isn’t involved

As you know, Christmas parties are typically not attended by the real Santy, and Santy impersonators rarely have access to the beloved burglar's suspiciously vast resources. In my youth this created two distinct scenarios.

Scenario 1 "Santy" gives us plastic tat from the pound shop. In this scenario you stand there looking at "Santy" with horror, thinking, What is this s**t, Simon? Are you telling me the residents' committee's supplementary budget only ran as far as these plastic farmyard animals? I find that very hard to believe."

Scenario 2 The toys are supplied by each child's own family, proving once and for all how little regard your parents have for your happiness. In this scenario your cheapskate parents have provided one solitary Star Wars figure and it's a f***ing Ewok while Michael from down the road gets Boba Fett's spaceship, which includes Han Solo trapped in Carbonite, and movable guns. This gives you trust issues and a need for therapy for the rest of your life.

Midnight Mass

When I was a child we didn’t have Twitter but did have priests. They were filled with hot takes. My favourite was a priest in Cork in the early 1980s who was obsessed with Boy George. “In many ways in Gethsemane, Jesus faced many of the problems George faced on the cusp of Culture Club’s second album,” he would say. And we’d just sit there taking it all in. Not even quote-tweeting it with a “lol”.

Another priest, when I lived in Kildare, liked to tell us what pigs we all were and how, though many of us thought we were so great, we were actually going to hell. At Christmas he would tell us we were all running away with ourselves with our Christmas trees and presents and gluttony and were forgetting the true meaning of Christmas: Easter. Yes, Christ's suffering and death in order to save some but definitely not all of us (and here he'd stare at particular families) was ultimately what was important, not the shillyshallying in mangers, accepting gifts from strange men on camels. And look at the cut of us now, gorging on food and alcohol, and worshipping not Jesus but Santy, a pagan god of plenty. Oh, we'd get our comeuppance eventually, he warned, a comeuppance in HELL. I found it very Christmassy.

The yellow Lego castle I got the year I had mumps

I think we can all agree that the best present ever was the yellow Lego castle I got the year I had mumps. It had a red drawbridge and turrets and was filled with Lego knights and horses. I cherished this yellow castle. It was finally clear, once and for all, that I really was the best boy in all of Ireland and that nobody else was getting a go of it. Both things are true to this day.

Sad Labrador’s house

In my neighbourhood is a very large house festooned in blindingly bright Christmas lights – sleighs, large Christmas stars, illuminated reindeers. This is the house of Sad Labrador, who sits in the doorway, to the right of a life-sized glowing Santa Claus figure, gazing out mournfully at the road. I don't know for sure that this sad Labrador is actually named Sad Labrador, nor do I know for sure that he is the actual owner of this large house (although he does look very well fed). Nor do I know for sure if creating an elaborate backstory for local animals is what doctors call "psychologically healthy", but it seems to me that Sad Labrador has spent his life accumulating his vast wealth, probably in the asset-management field, and has only recently begun casting his mind back to his lost love, Deborah. He sits there, amid his glittering gewgaws and gimcracks, much like the Selfish Giant or Elon Musk, thinking of how he neglected Deborah's needs in the pursuit of career advancement. And now here he is, alone, surrounded by the hollow trappings of Christmas cheer. "What a fool I have been!" he cries. But it just sounds like barking.