Christmas Cracker

I've been trying to get into the spirit of ... er ... Saturnalia ... Bacchanalia ... Druid's Green Man ... Jewish Festival of Lights ... Roman Midwinter Solstice ... and whatever other religious festivities Christianity has been struggling to encompass or suppress for the last 2,000 years. But I'm already sick of it. Firms are clamouring for punters' attention. Adverts, TV commercials, begging letters from charities, art galleries and museums; they're all at it. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Fools plunge into debt to buy food for parties and pressies they can't afford. Are you aware that retail stores use background Christmas music as a means of social control to encourage shoppers to spend more money (CLICK)? The Germans are still miffed with Coca-Cola for foisting a US version of Santa Claus on them. Haddon Sundblom created the red-cheeked, jolly Santa for Coca-Cola in 1931 and painted him for three decades. But he came good in the end with this Naughty Santa for the Playboy cover of December 1972. What a Christmas cracker! It was his last assignment before he died in 1976.