Christmas time. The season of deception and greed and misery. Bah. Humbug!

The season for parents who lie to their children. Informing them with a straight face that their gifts are dependent on their behaviour alone. That poor kid down the street? Must have been a bad egg. The rich little snot on the corner? Despite all appearances, the proof is in the wrapping. He was a real gem this year. They spin hokey yarns and fantastical tales of a magic man who delivers consumer goods through unattended openings in their homes. Why do they do this? To control their children’s more destructive impulses through a sort of year-long racketeering grift. Nice presents you’ve got under that tree… wouldn’t want something bad to happen to them, eh?

But Dick, these parents are only doing it so their children aren’t left out! This pitiful excuse they proffer while rushing through the local shopping mall purchasing plastic dolls and foam bullet guns and all manners of other trite and disposable garbage. So – do as others do or you will be ostracized. No other fate is acceptable. Am I to believe that only children who trust in this santa claus creature are well-adjusted? What of the children for whom this perverted tradition has never been? The Buddhists, the Hare Krishnas, the destitute, the true athiests? Their children are somehow worse off? They require this reindeer-whipping oaf who will one day drag them with his toothy maw into the never-ending gift purchasing cycle that is Santa’s true goal? Remember this when giving the obligatory, “if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you also?” speech. You’ve trained them that way, dear parent. You have only your own desire for acceptance to blame for their rampant gift lust.

Oh, but you wouldn’t want to destroy their sense of wonder, would you? In this magical time of life? Even less persuasive. The job of a parent is not to create special moments or magical events (and then, of course, to dutifully document them on his or her telephone camera) for their offspring. That is the unintentional gift of childhood. Things are wonderful and beyond the grasp of their simple little minds for the very reason that they are children who have not experienced a great many things at all. No, the job of the sires and dams of these little human animals is to prepare them for the world as it is, not as created to suit our fantasy of endless purchasing power and saccharine cell phone commercials.

Why do we have a generation of fashion bloggers and uber drivers and youtube “stars”? Santa Claus. He is the embodiment of our desires to protect the little kiddies from their fate. To hide the grim realities of this world from their tender little minds until it’s too late. They’ve been raised on this magical pablum from the day they’re born and no one had the heart to cut off the drip. Now we have professional NFL offensive linemen being “bullied”. Blame Santa. And don’t even get started on that goddamned elf on a shelf. This thing barely pretends to be for the kids. It’s for parents who talk about Santa and wish they had their own fake wizard man with which to take yet more staged and asinine pictures for their insta-gram. This is not a holiday for the children, it is a celebration of excess.

New Years day – at least you’re still for the grown-ups. Get here, soon, sweet death knell of the holiday season.

Also, one more note. “Gift” is not a verb. You give a gift or you have a gift. You do not gift a gift any more than you car a car.

Didn’t see a lot of the games this weekend. Thursday and Monday were both complete mismatches that ended up with ugly scores. Of course I did pay attention to the Seahawks at Panthers matchup, it being the only game I really cared about save the wonderful upset win pulled off by the Falcons. Seattle played what a non fan would probably consider a boring game. They made some nice deep passes and got a lead early, then just kind of ground the game out like spice in a mortar. Carolina just doesn’t have the ability to come back on you with Allen back there. Maybe in a year or two but the tape is out there now and that 4-0 run is way in the rear view mirror. Will they still move Newton? He’s clearly a better QB than Allen but he’s also a poor leader due to his immaturity and as he ages he’ll be less and less able to rely on his rare power running ability. Wilson can’t run like he did five years ago. He never used to get caught from behind but ever since that year he played injured all season he has lost a big step. He, unlike Newton, is an adult who doesn’t cover his face during losses or storm out of press conferences when things haven’t gone his way and has upped his passing game to the point where running is a last resort. Tough call but I think it’ll just depend on how much draft compensation can be wrung out of some other GM who needs a franchise QB and is closer to contention than these Panthers are right now. Hello, Chicago?

I did see some of the Buffalo-Pittsburgh matchup. A couple teams I like a lot. Two good defences, you got a Watt and three Edmunds playing. Ed Oliver stepped right in at DT after Buffalo lost Kyle Williams. Fitzpatrick is playing like a man who just got set free from captivity aka playing football in Miami. Allen has a monster arm and can run as good as any QB not named Jackson and has been keeping his turnovers down lately. A thoroughly enjoyable game that pleased my pizza delivery guy greatly.

Kenny Albert has to be into something really weird. Just look at him.

A dark shame lurks deep in this man’s heart. He’s wearing a sweater with a snowman sporting an erect carrot in the booth here.

Curling went ahead as usual this past Friday. We had only three available to play because half our regular team was out of town, one regular sub had a recent knee issue and another sub, a 34-year-old man, came down with a case of the gout. A pack of broken down crones we are. How would the Ring Dandies pull this off?

Our regular skip told me I should play skip this time, a confusing and unstrategic move if there ever was one. He would play second and one of our newer players took lead. The other side, a pair of couples in their 40s or so, tried to sandbag us by saying they “didn’t know what they were doing”. They knew. They won the coin toss and took the hammer in the first. We held them to a single but alas they stole another in the second. We settled down a bit and picked up one of our own in the third. A big peel in the fourth that opened up the house seemed to change the game in our favour. A steal of two was followed by another stolen pair in the fifth. The thievery didn’t end there as we swiped another deuce in the sixth and won going away, 7-2. Our record now also up to 7-2 going into the playoffs on the final week.

Arrivederci and a pox on all your houses this Christmas.