A Smoking Christmas

A Christmas like no other, or so the media keep telling us.  Actually, it' pretty much normal for me.  It seems odd to me, all these people complaining about the pandemic forcing them into scaled-down Christmases, or even, horror of horrors, Christmas on their own.  Hey - I've been doing my solo Christmas thing for years now and I wouldn't have it any other way.  It has turned Christmas from something I'd come to dread into something I now look forward to - a day of lethargy devoted entirely to myself, with no interruptions from the outside world.  Which is what puzzles me about this outpouring of despair over the idea of having to have a 'different' Christmas - aren't many of these people the same ones who every year moan about Christmas, about the expense of it and being forced to put up with their relatives?  Well, here's your chance to do it differently and what do they do?  They moan about it.  Mind you, even I have had to change some of my regular Christmas activities this year - there's no video of the various Christmas lights I see around Crapchester.  To be fair, this isn't entirely down to Covid.  It also has a lot to do with the fact that I didn't get my car back from the garage until yesterday, (a saga in itself) and, as I've been on sabbatical from my usual work, even if I had been mobile, I wouldn't have had cause to be going all over the town looking at other people's Christmas decorations.  

While I might not have my customary Christmas video to post here this Christmas Eve, instead here's some vintage Christmas advertising:

So there you are - if you are stuck for a last minute Christmas present, just give someone a carton of cigarettes, so that they can happily hack their way through the festive season.  Back in the fifties these sort of promotions - gift packed cigarettes - were apparently pretty common.  Not just in the US, either.  I have vague recollections of having seen a similar promotion from the UK in the sixties, involving John Player Specials.  I suppose that it made a nice change from being given socks for Christmas.

So, it only remains to wish everyone a happy Winterval, or whatever it is you celebrate.  Have a good one.