From:    'J'
Date:     17 October 2001 05:01PM
To:      'S'
Subject:  Have a schizophrenic Christmas.

Hey Sis, did I tell you I’m on the committee for planning this year’s work Christmas function?  Here are some of my ideas. I don’t think they’re going down very well.  People here are strange.

At each table, instead of having people’s names on their seat, have characters from your Standard Aussie Christmas –  Drunk Uncle Barry, Vegetarian Bernadette (still trying to finish that Bachelor of Arts), Lecherous Aunt Lizzie with the Hairy Chin, Bratty Aaron Age 6 and high on sugar, Aunty Jean with Her Headache, Cousin Wayne flicking bra straps and giving Aaron Chinese burns, and Uncle Mike, the Bitter Divorcee. So when someone sits there, that’s their character for the dinner.

And then later on if we need to divvy people up into teams we can have the Drunk Uncle Barry’s against the Lecherous Aunt Lizzie’s or whatever. And we’d have to play hits from the seventies.  I reckon we should have a karaoke machine too.

And instead of a photographer, I’d like to have a caricaturist there to draw people when they’re pissed. Yeah, something bawdy, like Larry Pickering!

And instead of the Kris Kringle, we’ll give everyone a “suspicious powdery package” to make them appreciate what they’ve got instead of lusting after what they want and can’t have, or maybe to remind them that like the Rolling Stones said – you can’t always get what you want, but sometime soon you’ll get what you deserve, which is anthrax. We should have a kissing booth as well.

And I want to give everyone fortune cookies with doctored messages in them, like “I didn’t wash my hands”, and “Who’s that behind you?”

Sis , you must help me STOP the spread of Christmas. Enlist your employees in a campaign against it.  Christmas must be stopped. In these days of Jihad, there can be no time for flibberty-gibberting about presents and candy. It has advanced from its den of December and crept through November to slither into October. At first it was just a bit of fake snow in a window shopfront, a few rolls of last year’s wrapping paper in the bargain bin.   But yesterday I heard the carols in the bra shop’s PA system. Christmas will not stop until it has taken over the whole calendar. I’m not one to subscribe to conspiracy theories, but I have cancer in my ass and I blame Santa.

 

From:    'S'
Date:     17 October 2001 06:19PM 
To:      'J'
Subject:  Have a schizophrenic Christmas.

 

Could not have put it better myself bro, we are on the same wave length.

I am in charge of booking/organising our company ‘do’ and have done nothing in the vain hope that everyone will forget about Christmas.  I fucking hate it.

Love you

 

From:    'J'
Date:     18 October 2001 01:05 
To:      'S'
Subject:  Have a schizophrenic Christmas

How many people do you have to cater for?  If it’s not too big you could do something really fun, like a wine tasting, or some catch-and-kill-your-own type place. Or have a XXXmas party, where everyone has to use their porno star name (first pet’s name and first street you lived in) and serve all the food in bed, eat oysters and hot dogs and other suggestive foodstuffs, while porno movies play on a giant projector screen in the back.

 

From  :  'S'
Date:     18 October 2001 07:05PM
To:      'J'
Subject:  Have a schizophrenic Christmas

There will be 32 of the ungrateful fuckers and no matter what I do it will be inadequate. I know I can’t please all the people all the time, but these days it is a case of pleasing no fucker at any fucking point.

AAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH h!

 

 

From  :  'J'
Date:     19 October 2001 12:55AM 
To:      'S'
Subject:  Have a schizophrenic Christmas

How about this: stick everyone in a fat suit. (Can you hire them? just jam foam down their pants and shirts if not) and then descend on the nearest all-you-can-eat buffet style family hell hole (you know the sort of thing, The Lone Star chain, or Smorgies, Sizzler) and get everyone to stuff their faces and eat like pigs, putting the usual clientele to shame, seeing themselves in you. The only problem with this scenario is if you have any fatties working there.

At least you have creative control – I have to pass everything through a COMMITTEE of deadshits. We’ve got one who’s so hell bent on giving money to charity that she won’t even let them do a Kris Kringle – all money has to go to charity. And if we come in under budget on the catering, instead of spending the money on something fun like a jumping castle, it all has to go to charity. Fuck charity I say, this is Xmas, and I DESERVE TO HAVE SOME FUN, preferably at the EXPENSE of those less fortunate. And then there’s another one who takes every single one of my ideas and turns it into something crap. Like my idea for having everyone act out (if they feel like it) a standard family Xmas character – she wants to turn it into a skit.  Goddamn, if there’ one thing the world needs less of, it’s amateur theatrics. Maybe I’m just precious.

Oh, and here’s a nice idea I saw on telly — You know those voice box things that people with throat cancer have to get after their operations?   Get everyone to pretend they’ve got one of those and then go sing Christmas carols outside your local cigarette shops.

Umm, that’s about all I can think of at the moment. If I come up with anything else I’ll let you know. But quid pro quo – you gotta tell me what you’re doing too.