Remember I told you I’m annoyed by things that make no sense?

Well Merry Christmas everyone, it’s happening again.

Graz, Austria’s second city, does not believe in Santa Claus. They believe the one who brings their presents is a winged angel, a flash of light, a mysterious being, called Christkind. After dark on Christmas Eve, there is a flash of light and Christkind leaves presents and a decorated tree. What a beautiful story.

So why ruin it with ridiculous behaviour, in the form of parading through the streets in a big anti-Santa rally?

Yes, these people are protesting against Father Christmas, supposedly a figure invented by Coca Cola (completely untrue) and simply a symbol of consumerism and soullessness at that. Oddly enough, both figures are about BRINGING PRESENTS and can therefore be no less consumerist than the other. Yet children are proclaiming that Christkind are bringing their presents this year – not Father Christmas, he brings them to England. One mother even states diplomatically that they are not against Santa, that he’s good for England, but “he is not good for us”. Another, even more diplomatic, states that she believes they can work together.

Am I missing something? Are we deliberately ignoring the fact that, well, umm...

SANTA ISN’T REAL, AND NEITHER IS A MAGICAL FLASH OF LIGHT THAT LEAVES PRESENTS AND DECORATIONS ON TREES

YOU DECORATE YOUR TREE

YOU BUY THE PRESENTS, FROM TOYS ‘R’ US

Why would you rally for OR against something you know has no basis in truth whatsoever?! Is that how we’re preserving the magic of Christmas now, by making anti-Santa signs, pro-Christkind signs and getting into arguments when someone decorates their house with a figure of a jolly fat man? Are you trying to convince your kids even further – honey, you know Christkind must be real, surely you know Mummy wouldn’t waste her time on something as stupid as PROTESTING A MYTHICAL FIGURE.

I know, I know, they’re trying to preserve a tradition. But how far will they go? Are they going to leave poisoned milk and cookies the dog has licked, just in case the evil Coca-Cola Santa dares try to give them presents? That’d serve him right. He’d lie writhing in their living room as the family stand over him saying “Guess we haven’t been good this year after all...throw him in the dungeon with the Easter Bunny.”

What I’m getting at, aside from my silly jokes, is that the Christian community seems to be the most concerned with getting others to believe what they do. The aggressive recruiting policies have now even spread to protests against others believing that a different mythical figure is bringing them presents. For the love of God, who cares?! It’s your house, tell your kids what you want; in this house, we believe a flash of light brings us our presents. Next door they believe them to be brought by a man who is sort of the opposite of a burglar – all along you’re buying all the presents anyway. The very idea that your tradition has more importance than anyone else’s is not only preposterous, it perpetuates the same judgemental idea that (even if you are right) it’s somehow your job to “fix” those who don’t agree.

Note to the Christian recruiters - are you even saving those people? Aren’t you worried that they’ll get up to Heaven as true believers, thanks to you, and God will just eye them suspiciously and say “Oh, so you believe do you? Needed some convincing though, didn’t you? Eh?”

(In the spirit of Christmas, let me just put something out there. Once in a standup, I said “f***” five times in an eight minute set. You can find it on YouTube. Some would say I offended God. And let me tell you, if it turns out He’s real and I did offend him, I will apologise. It’s never my intention to offend. However, I’d be offended if I’d created the entire universe and people thought I couldn’t handle a newfangled “bad” word. My guess? He can handle it. He’s a trooper.)

Remember when Christmas was associated with peace on earth? It’s a lovely idea, it really is, and the traditional picture of children from all over the world waking up to find presents, happiness and goodwill is a beautiful one. But we’re not getting any closer to that with the state of the world as it is right now – the last thing we need is anti-Santa rallies. Come on. He’s doing the best he can, with his cholesterol problems and all those accusations that he fiddles the elves (completely unfounded). Why not promote Christkind the way Santa got promoted – literature, stories, poems, songs – and yes, having a major corporation endorsement is always helpful.

It’s Christmas, people. Lighten up.