Christmas Every Week: Compulsory Christmas
Since Christmas is compulsory you might as well enjoy it, says Arnold Kellett.
Christmas is compulsory,
You simply can't avoid it...
Though Cromwell's Puritans once thought
They'd finally destroyed it,
And banned the feast perpetually
In Sixteen Fifty-Two,
Effaced all trace of Christmas grace
From public house to pew,
And though their Act of Parliament
Has never been repealed,
The fate of festive abstinence
Was soon for ever sealed,
For Dickens made a new decree,
That henceforth no-one dare
Abstain like Ebenezer Scrooge
From Christmas fun and fare:
You must join in the jollity,
No matter what you're feeling,
With smiling Christmas-wrapper face
The honest truth concealing;
You may be low and close to tears,
Immersed in personal sadness,
But now by international law
You'll feign appropriate gladness:
Christmas is compulsory
And nothing can destroy it -
So since it's inescapable
We might as well enjoy it!
