The panic of the Christmas holidays is finally fading. All that is left now is wrapping paper tucked under beds and in cupboards, expiring Christmas trees lying on the sidewalk, and of course, thousands of cases of holiday season post-traumatic shock. We have to be careful around these people, as something as simple as the sound of a Christmas cracker, a firework or a wine bottle being uncorked will send them into hysterical fits. If you are unfortunate enough to be suffering from this disease after Christmas, then New Year's celebrations are to you, a very bad word.

I would like to know, who planned the festive season so badly? You've barely recovered, and then suddenly you're thrust unwillingly into another party, another falsely joyful get-together of close friends and people you would like to send to Outer Mongolia with a one-way ticket. On the 29th of December, people are slowly beginning to recover from over-eating, over-partying and too much alcohol. Then, suddenly, New Years is thrust upon us. If we complain that another night like the Christmas ones will kill us, all our “friends” claim we're being boring, and drag us off to a small, crowded nightclub. You all stand at the back, clutching your drinks and making very loud conversation. Your headache is already bad. Not from the alcohol, or the smoke, but from the awful tinny music blasting through blown speakers. In front of you, the dance floor is coated with writhing twelve- year olds, clutching drinks with eighteen times the alcohol content of your drink. So, you move on.

If you're with friends, they'll probably have forced you to go to another club, then another, then move on to a beach party with millions of unconscious couples and really feeble fireworks which go three feet in the air then die with a feeble popping noise. If you're with family, you'll go to a nice restaurant, have a meal (argue all through it) then, the partying begins. Either way, you'll stagger home at 5 am, all the helpful healing from the past three days wasted, your head feeling like a punching bag, and you wishing you'd stayed home with a good book and a bowl of ice cream.

And I'm not even going to start on the days preceding Christmas. On the 23rd and 24th, people suddenly remember that they've forgotten to buy a pair of slippers for their great second uncle eighteen times removed, or that they've forgotten to buy wrapping paper, or have run out of tape. There is a lemming-like rush to the malls, and people are crushed to death trying to get into shoe stores. There are many strange fatalities in this season. People impaled on Christmas trees, etc. Also, there are many funny incidents. I came across my neighbors having a bizarre guerrilla war with garden gnomes and plastic reindeer. Never mind snowball fights. Those gruesome garden decorations that come in droves in the Christmas season have finally found a use: heavy-duty weaponry. However, aside from the trauma and psychological damage inflicted on one during this season, it has to be said, there is no time like Christmas. Certainly there's no other time of year where the most dangerous thing you will encounter is your mother, lawn decorations, excessive alcohol intake, or mosh pits forming in shopping centers.