The Frumplingtons

It’s official: there is no escape from Christmas.

Ever.

For most of this year, we have been documenting the ways Christmas tends to appear at the most unexpected and unseasonal times, making us feel more than a little uncomfortable. You know how, on Bank Holiday Mondays, sometimes you catch yourself thinking it’s still Sunday and feeling all out of synch with the rest of the world? Well, it’s like that. Talking of BHMs, I fell into the SundayMonday confusion trap myself earlier today. It may have been because of the lack of traffic sounds from the nearby freeway; or perhaps it was something to do with the way everyone in the street had come out and participated in simultaneous car washing manœuvres. Surely, I reasoned, today must be Sunday; car washing only ever happens on Sundays.

And then I looked at the great heap of discarded paper aeroplanes strewn across the floor and noticed the left aileron on the topmost jet fighter. There, clearly visible in big bold type was the legend: SUNDAY. Either I had torn the wrong day off the calendar to make my paper planes, or it was indeed Monday today.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens?

Well, that’s what it’s like when Christmas programmes (or programmes with even the tiniest amount of Christmassy content) are shown any time other than in December. Here’s what we’ve had to suffer this year:

1. A Christmas episode of ‘Neighbours’. In March!
2. A short snippet of the film, ‘Girl from Rio’, in the merry monthe of Maye.
3. A well known television shopping channel advertising Christmas products in July — on the only sunny day all summer, too.

And yesterday afternoon, what did BBC2 choose to show but the 1936 British sci-fi classic, ‘Things to Come‘, based on good old Herbie Wells’s book of (almost) the same name. Not only did this much-acclaimed fillum have more than its fair share of hammy acting, plummy accents and camp costumes: it also started with around ten minutes of Christmas trees and bloomin’ carol singing.

Does anyone at the BBC actually possess a calendar. Or do they all live in some kind of time warp?

(On second thoughts, don’t answer that last question.)

I’m starting to wonder though, whether this last example is not so much an example of Christmas outstaying its welcome as it might be an early sign of the build-up to next Christmas having just begun.

Football fans will know what I’m talking about here. Often the build-up is as important as — or even more important than — the match itself. (Example dialogue: “Yes, I know I’m plastered and the game doesn’t start for another three hours. But it’s all about the build-up, ain’t it?”)

So, forget about Christmas trees or Christmas crackers appearing in the shops. Never mind about the Christmas lights being switched on in Oxford Street. The build-up to Christmas 2007 officially started on Sunday 26th August at 2.45pm on BBC2.

And if this really is the shape of things to come, better get a few cases of beer in pronto, I reckon. ‘Cos it looks like we’re in for a bleedin’ long Chrimbo this year.

Turkey sandwich, anyone?