Merry Xmas Everybody

On Xmas Eves past I've posted a letter to Santa, but my hopes for an end to 'hysterical nannying' are never fulfilled, sadly.

Therefore, this Xmas I shall wish for something far more likely to be granted, like these guys did in their criminally underplayed seasonal offering.

Yes, there really is more chance of taking a 23-eyed alien as a pet than our maternal state leaving us to go about our lives unfettered. We can't, it would appear, change the cards we are dealt (without blowing things up, of course), we can merely play the hand in such a way as to mitigate the worst excesses our hideous legislators seek to force upon us ... and boy have we seen some of those in 2010! Let's hope we can be more optimistic come Xmas 2011.

By the way, if you thought my using Xmas throughout this post was lazy or irreverent, it isn't. In fact, in doing so I've added a traditional flavour to the piece, as the Churchmouse - a good friend of this blog and a perfect person to link to at this time of year - explains fully here.

The ‘X’ comes from the Greek ‘chi-rho’ symbol, illustrated at left. These are the first two letters of ‘Christ’ in Greek. This was the way ‘Christ’ was written in English until the advent of the printing press, which couldn’t handle the symbol, for obvious reasons. So, printers used an ‘X’ for ‘Christ’. Xmas is pronounced ‘Christmas’.

So, it isn’t disrespectful at all to write ‘Xmas’ in a seasonal greeting. In fact, it’s the oldest way.

And there were Slade, probably thinking they were being a bit edgy back in 1973, eh?

So Merry Xmas to everyone who has popped into this grumpy grotto during the year (apart from ASH nosey-bonks, natch). Whether you've been naughty or nice, may you and yours enjoy a fantastic festive period.

Let the over-indulgence commence!