Why the World Cup is better than Christmas

[I can't be bothered with Scotland yet, so here is something I wrote twelve, sixteen or maybe twenty years ago, I forget. Christmas hasn't grown on me, but I've learned to endure it with more grace than previously.]

Oh, let me count the ways.

No-one suddenly thinks they can demand things of you because the World Cup is on. No one expects you to buy them things, or attend their tedious performances, or in fact leave your house at any time. There are no World Cup cards demanding to be sent, even though there is actually far more to celebrate.

The World Cup is a celebration of summer, whereas Christmas is a commiseration for winter.

No one says we have lost the true meaning of the World Cup. No one pretends we only have the World Cup for the sake of the children. Children are not annoying for months before the World Cup.

The actual World Cup itself goes on for longer than the buildup. You are never sick of the whole subject of the World Cup weeks before it actually happens.

The World Cup has no cranberry sauce in it.

Shops do not close for the World Cup.

You aren't expected to begin every conversation with "Happy World Cup!" simply because it happens to be the World Cup.

The World Cup is not a huge, tedious, life-dominating pain in the arse.

Some people, believe it or not, claim that it is, but those are usually the same people that like Christmas, precisely because it gives them an excuse to demand things of you. Festivals which revolve around sybaritic pleasure and guilt-free self-indulgence are incomprehensible to them, which is odd, because that’s precisely what festivals were originally for.

 . . . .  .

As I said, I'm older and more resigned now, and I've come to terms to Christmas up to a point. I will never ever accept that there should be four of them to every World Cup though.

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