'Christmas!! Christmas!' (Mr A.Muggins at Christmas)

 ‘Christmas!! Christmas!!’ he swore to himself under his breath. It was all getting just too much for him. He was lazy enough at the best of times, and Christmas just inflicted that extra bit of workload, that could just break his patience. He wasn’t a great christmas believer , although as a child he had been pretty keen on it. He had lost track of just how many times he had had to put up the loft ladder. And help steady it while others or even himself had to go up and put wrapped presents up there. Then the next day they would have to do it again because some member of the family had forgotten where he or she had put some present or other, or mislabelled them. He started to wonder why they were having to do so much of Santa’s job for him! If Santa wasn’t really real, why did they have to do so much work for him? Mr Muggins had his own beliefs about who they were all working for. It wasn’t for the grandkids and relatives, or for Santa himself. He believed it was all largely a big money making exercise for the benefit of the shops and factories. Someone was definitely getting rich from all this pointless climbing up and down ladders, and endless wrapping and unwrapping and relabelling of presents! And it certainly wasn’t him!