Only 355 shopping days until Christmas!

Well the so-called "silly season" has come and gone. I'm not entirely sure why they call it the silly season; I don't feel any less silly now than I did two weeks ago. In fact as I type this, I'm dressed entirely in peaches whereas I wouldn't have even considered such a thing whilst in advent. (For one, peaches were too expensive back then, and for another, most of them were under-ripe and I would have had to spend much of my holidays on the toilet, but I digress.)

I quite like Christmas. Of coarse it holds spiritual significance to me, being a Christian. Why wouldn't celebrating God coming to Earth in human form to save mankind from the sin that separates us from Him be the best time of year? But setting apart the divine and eternal auspiciousness for a moment, if I may be so heathen, I'm sure even the most devout of atheists can be convinced to raise a smile when he ventures downstairs to find his stocking filled with colourful goodies.

Many have criticised Christmas as being over-commercialised, but I disagree. People are filled with as much Christmas spirit as they ever were, decorating their houses with enormous nativity scenes, covering their lawns with artificial snow in thirty-degree heat, (twelve degrees Fahrenheit), queuing for hours to have their salamander photographed with Santa Claus. Why, so enthused with sharing the festive season, the Waratah Village shopping centre are now putting up their Christmas decorations in late April.

Some would argue that these are all examples of people using the holiday for their own selfish purposes. In my humblest opinion, there is only one creature that abuses the good name of Christmas - the Christmas beetle. This little flying imp has the gall, nay, the audacity to don a shiny shell, adopt the name Christmas and expect us to give it all reverence due to the Holy season. If a cockroach or earwig flew into my house, I would lunge for my thong, or at least scream wildly and run away, I certainly wouldn't call my entire family together to look at it. People squish cockroaches or earwigs without a moment's hesitation, and feel the better for it. Kill a Christmas beetle on the other hand and people think it's Christmas itself they're squashing into the carpet.
I say POPPYCOCK to these absurd double standards (if you'll pardon my archaic vernacular). This is a blatant case of "A rose by any other name", (except that in this case the rose is an insect, and rather than the name being irrelevant and the object's individual traits determining its true value, the name does indeed govern how we perceive the object.) (Cop that Shakespeare.)

I say equality for all bugs. If you're going to celebrate the first Christmas beetle of the year, then why not also celebrate the first March fly of the year? On the other hand, if you're going to go after a spider with a rolled up newspaper, then be sure to swipe at the Xmas beetle with the same enthusiasm.

Controversial, I know but that's the way it is.

Remember, SGR (now at AC) is here in 2005 providing entertainment, self-help, recipes, bad spelling and a user-friendly guide to anything and everything.
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