The Sun-Herald

'Tis the season for folly

This time of year is peak season in my job, and life's tapestry is never richer. This week I have mingled with eleven Britney Spearses, innumerable pixies, the Three Amigos, a human ecstasy pill, the Pope, some ghosts, Robert Mugabe and the genuine Lionel Richie. And it's still early days.

For any eager observer of human behaviour, Christmas is the gift that keeps on giving - a bottomless stocking crammed with the entire spectrum of spectacle. Everything is heightened, amplified and dusted with a light coating of icing sugar to create one big juicy cake of craziness. And it's all thanks to the festive season's greatest joy: excuses.
One of my wildest friends, whose most mind-boggling antics are reserved for Yuletide, once said: "I love the festive season most of all because in the name of Christmas, everything is justifiable."
And it is. We're at the annual amnesty on ill-advised sexual exploits, binge-spending, inebriation on a grand scale and any other act normally attributed to grave moral weakness. Santa gives us noble reasons for silliness. I often wish he worked full-time.
Then again, no. For starters, I'd be broke from constant shopping so frenzied that if the stores were people, they'd be left feeling naked and violated. At Christmas you can pillage willy-nilly under the guise of benevolence, with only your credit card to witness that most purchases are "a little treat for me (it's been a tough year)." At other times, labouring under a mountain of bulging shopping bags screams indulgence and spend-aholism. Right now, it says 'Santa's little helper'.
Imagine, too, if festive passion was for life and not just for Christmas. I've seen friends' goodwill extend to taxi drivers, a lingerie sales assistant (particularly inappropriate, considering the perpetrator was buying undies for his girlfriend at the time) and an Elvis who looked more like an impressionist painting of the King than the real thing.
As a teenager, I worked in a balloon shop one Christmas vacation and fell for the boss, briefly. I think the helium made me delirious. He knew how to make those animals from bendy balloons and perhaps it seemed erotic at the time. I don't know. All I do know is that the bubble - or rather the balloon - burst when January came and customers grew weary of festive fun. He said I wasn't flogging the Valentines Day helium hearts hard enough, so I said he had an inflated ego (all right, I didn't think of that at the time, but I wish I had). He's a memory best left in the cupboard with the decorations: wonderful to bring out every year for fun, but nothing you'd want to live with.
There's always an exception. One friend met her husband at a Christmas party. It was a fully-fledged shocker of an office bash - hats were worn, underwear flashed, and grudges aired. There were incidents in cupboards. She'd just joined the company and he was visiting from a regional office, so neither had come as an elf, a Christmas pudding or a Santa. Instead, they bonded while others self-destructed. I remember them holding hands on the stairs, while the financial director plummeted past with what appeared to be a mince pie spot-welded to his head. It was like a wartime romance, and it's still going strong.
For the less successful, there's plenty of post-festive damage limitation literature, providing everything from holistic hangover relief to debt management to legal help and post-traumatic stress counselling. Which is useful if, like me, you've seen a loved one climb a public Christmas tree, drop his pants and sing Last Christmas, wearing antlers and a flashing Rudolf nose.
Even in the name of Christmas, some crimes are inexcusable: Cliff Richard, for example. But most will be forgiven. We're prepared to accept that everyone means well, and the off-target gift, the mistletoe fumble and the party sideshow are all part of what happens when people try hard to connect. Christmas is like love in that way; a hit-and-miss business with an addiction to kitsch, that makes optimistic fools of us all.