Well, it’s almost here. One day you’re thinking Woolies is trying to sneak the decorations out a little early, the next you look up and Jesus is sprinting at you full-speed, wielding a leg of ham like a mace and demanding to know what you got him for his birthday.
It’s Christmas, and it’s time to have a little crisis about it.
If this season isn’t at least partially stressful for you then you’re probably the reason Christmas is several times more stressful for someone close to you. It’s meant to be stressful – crises are meant to spring from it like whatever the fruit is that springs from mistletoe.
Santa has probably already been awake for weeks, staring at his phone in bed and wondering how many US home owners will try and blow his foot off the second he sticks it down their chimney this year. His beautiful wife is preparing to be left alone in the cold north with nobody to speak to but his horrible little elves, who are probably busy with their own disgusting elf holiday traditions (watching Lord of The Rings with a filter that gives Legolas big kissable lips, for example).
Think you have a handle on things this year? Congratulations: you’re lying to yourself. But with a little creativity you too can fall victim to a Christmas crisis. Here are just a few lesser-known options.
Secret Santa blowup
You might not expect a fight to break out over a game that directly encourages stealing from family members who have been drinking since breakfast, but there you go.
Secret Santa can be one of the most fraught activities on Earth. This is doubly true if it’s the version where players can steal any previously opened gift, and particularly if you’re doing it around any of those weapons-grade metal tree ornaments that you can’t even buy without a licence these days.
But don’t let your guard down just because you’re playing the safer, non-theft version: unwrapping that Jamie Oliver 10-Minute Bovril cookbook you picked up last minute might be the thing that pushes your aunt over the edge.
Pyramid scheme in-law
If your Christmas wish was to have an interminable conversation with the vaguely familiar partner of a cousin you haven’t seen in 14 years about how much extra income they’re enjoying since they started selling a brain-enhancing powdered mushroom drink on Instagram, then I’ve got good news for you!
If you’re lucky they’ll just be a cult member, but it’s much more likely you’ve got a multi-level marketer on your hands. From there your crisis can spin off in a few exciting directions: either you muster the courage to tell an eerily friendly stranger to go back to whatever goblin cave they sprung from, or you invest your meagre savings in MushroYum Cogni-Blast and start DMing people you haven’t shared a word with since high school graduation.
Nieces and nephews too strong
Kids are so cruel these days. They have to be to survive growing up online and to prepare for the post-apocalyptic bandit melees of the future. Who knows how strong your nieces and nephews have become in the time since you last saw them, how much more brutal in their surprise attacks and cutting in their insults.
Even if you have been keeping tabs on them, one of your in-laws could have remarried into a family of wrestling champions whose kids have the kind of genetics that would get them banned from any combat sport they’re allowed to show on television. Good luck pulling a Christmas cracker with one of those units, I hope you like being force-fed the incredibly sharp plastic knick-knack it comes with.
Cards Against Humanity incident
Think of the family member you’d least like to see cackling about a creative slur they just devised. Now imagine a room full of them. The 2010s may be dead but that doesn’t mean the worst of its humour has to be, and what better way to see which of your loved ones are looking for a flimsy excuse to be creatively racist in a South Park voice.
Worrying about what’s happening with the Large Hadron Collider
Remember the Large Hadron Collider? What was the go there? A big song and dance about some Europeans building a terrifying gigantic ring deep under the ground so they can blast particles around and unlock the mysteries of the universe. And then basically nothing.
And we’re just supposed to sit around and feel OK about it? Did they figure it out or what? Can somebody go down there and check on them please?
Parents don’t get you any good toys
This one’s self-explanatory. Sick of it.
Jack Vening is a writer living in Melbourne. He is currently completing his first book of stories and sends out Small Town Grievances, a community newsletter about a nameless town with an owl problem, every few months
