Christmas is fast approaching, and for local man Slade Burton (fake name) that means it’s time for his annual Christmas traditions.
Slade lives in a small one bedroom apartment in Inner City Brisbane, working hospitality hours and the fact that the rest of his family live in Victoria means he has spent the last two Christmases by himself. 2023 will be a third straight year of working past midnight on Christmas Eve, and doing the morning shift on Boxing Day because he has no kids, so in the minds of co-workers is much less important.
Not that Slade minds, he gets a few days off either side to do what he wants, and his annual Christmas traditions.
Similar to most households around Australia, Slade spends the week before Christmas over-catering, but in his case it isn’t too much Ham or dessert, just a sh!tload of alcohol. Enough to supply one and a half end of season footy trips.
Of course, Slade is well aware of the finest Christmas Cocktail list provided by our website for the festive season. And intends to have a go at all of them despite the warnings, and a bad experience from attempting it on a lonely Friday night during a Covid lockdown in 2020. A full outfit worn that day hasn’t been the same since. Nor has the greetings from the elderly couple living next door. It went from polite Good Mornings to disappointed Baby Boomer overnight. Slade still wonders what he did. Then prefers not to think about it.
Despite over-catering on alcohol, Slade’s Christmas food line up is less extravagant and more minimal. His food is limited to a block of both Cracker Barrel and Mainland Vintage cheese, Jatz crackers and Cheds, and some Beef Jerky for balance. Simple pleasures, but still an annual Christmas Tradition for Slade.
Speaking of cheese, another annual Christmas tradition is reminding himself of Peter Russell Clarke’s Where’s the Cheese? adverts. So onto YouTube for a solid hour of those, including watching the infamous swearing bloops at least nine times.
Thankfully the pub where Slade works in the bar has a restaurant that is so bad that management deem it a waste of time opening on Christmas Day, which allows him to tick off his annual Christmas traditions.
All of the above is just the entree of course, for the proper annual Christmas tradition is watching a traditional Christmas movie – Bad Santa.
The delightful Christmas themed movie starring Billy Bob Thornton is still one of the funniest movies Slade has ever seen, remembering the tears of laughter from the first time he watched the movie in the cinemas in October of that year. October being a much safer month to release the movie in case unsuspecting families considered taking their kids to see a drunk, criminal Shopping Centre Santa swear and piss his way through another Christmas.
Despite being a viewing in the double figures, most of the movie still hits the spot, with wonders why Billy Bob Thornton didn’t receive an Oscar for his portrayal of Santa instead of whatever arthouse dull-fest film actor won that year. Thoughts even turn to how he could become the Bad Santa of his current workplace, then the thought of having no job and no place to live and being featured on the local news camping as a victim of the Cost-of-Living crisis.
As Slade polishes off his tenth cocktail in the Christmas Cocktail list, the movie comes to an end, with the infamous scene of “the kid” riding off on his bike with the T-Shirt “Sh!t Happens When You Party Naked”.
With work due on Boxing Day he decides that the 11:20pm showing on his wall clock, and the blood alcohol reading of 0.21 is enough reason to go to bed. But in a final Christmas tradition he retires to no bed, but a temporary sleeping arrangement that has become a holiday tradition.
Slade grabs a single mattress and pushes it up against the lounge creating a poolside sunbathing chair-style setup, that he has dubbed his “Slothtress”. Moments later, with an ambitiously chosen two-hour full replay of some Grand Prix from the 1980’s still blaring on the TV, Slade has passed out and dreaming of next Christmas when he can do it all over again.
Everyday News is the Gurgler’s news for the everyday person from the everyday world. Stories from the quiet suburban neighbourhoods, the local bus stops and aisles of your local Bunnings. Stories that are usually left unsaid and under-appreciated. Everyday News is certainly not under-appreciated at The Gurgler, in fact we champion the quiet people. Sure they sound like Betoota Advocate rip offs, but that simply isn’t true, ours aren’t that good.
