(I have observed down the years that most people take a walk after lunch in order to ‘walk it off’, and I’ve often wondered why people gorge themselves on Christmas Day until they feel bloated and uncomfortable. Where’s the pleasure in that?)
But anyway, the fact is that I dislike making disingenuous responses. If I were to be honest, I would say something like: ‘No thanks. I don’t do Christmas.’ But then they would probably call me Scrooge, and sneer and shriek and set their dogs on me, even if they paid obeisance to the spirit of the season and delayed chasing me to the burning mill with pitchforks until Boxing Day.
I do wish people would learn to understand Scrooge because then they might realise that I am very nearly his antithesis. Why do so many people think A Christmas Carol is about correction, when it’s actually about rehabilitation?
But here’s the nice bit. During the whole progress of my walk only one vehicle passed me and guess who was in it. Yup, the only person domiciled within a 25 mile radius of here who I welcome seeing on Christmas Day. And being a passenger in a car, she was unable to wish me a Happy Christmas. Perfect. (Actually she just might know me well enough not to wish me a Happy Christmas, but as the aforementioned Mr Scrooge says at one point in A Christmas Carol – it’s the bit all the dramatisations leave out – ‘Excuse me. I don’t know that.’)
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