Dave The Penguin

Dave's Christmas Hat

 Dave's Christmas Hat

Dave didn’t like Christmas. It wasn’t that he had anything against it; it was just that he was expected to do so many things, and it was always a bit of a let-down, you know, always somewhat disappointing, overhyped, predictable?

He was supposed to get all excited for weeks beforehand; he was supposed to get presents and cards for people, relatives, even ones he didn’t like. He was supposed to sing songs, eat too much, see the same old movies, and watch everyone else having a great time, just doing the same old thing year after year.

But not Dave. This year he just couldn’t see the point.

Worst of all though, and this really was the most awful bit, he was supposed to wear his Christmas Hat; the red woollen itchy one, with the white pom-pom on the end of the pointless floppy cone. Every year it came out of the Christmas box.

Every year, he had to put it on, and every year he had to keep it on, for days.

Of course, it itched like mad, especially in the heat, and he looked really stupid in it.

He really hated that hat.

So Dave was not a happy bunny, and even though he didn’t know what a bunny was, he was sure he wouldn’t be a happy one. The only thing he knew about bunnies was that they lived down rabbit holes, and they lived in fear and ignorance, and were controlled by chemicals.

In any case he certainly wasn’t one, and he certainly wasn’t a happy penguin, that was for sure.

He could never understand what Christmas was all for, and why it was all during the hottest time of the year, when the sun never went down, so you couldn’t sleep off the hangovers.

His wife seemed to love Christmas though; she would get all excited - looking forward to it all, wrapping presents, sending cards. Which to Dave was all a bit odd and pointless, as they saw all the same penguins every day anyway, so what was the bloody point.

She also spent a lot of time deciding what she was going to wear, and getting anxious if ‘the big day’  would all go ‘OK’, and everyone be ‘merry’.

She always wanted everything to be ‘just right’, ‘perfect’, ‘happy and jolly’, spending almost all day putting up bits of coloured seaweed here and there, on bits of stupid driftwood. Which he had to help with, because it was ‘traditional’, oh and did he mention ‘stupid’?

He had tried to work out why it had all started, and when it had all began, and what exactly was being celebrated. He asked his best mate –

“Well,” said his mate “its traditional innit? You know one of them pagan festival fingies, wot sort of got taken over? All to mark the end of the year, and get rid of all the food, you know, and everyone hopes it will be a white Christmas?”

And he laughed.

Dave looked confused.

“Look, it’s a laugh!!” His mate continued, “Something to get everyone together, have a bit of fun, a bit of a singsong, you know, tell a few stories, jokes, games, dancing that sort of fing - catch up on some gossip. Nuffin’ wrong with that is there?”

And he looked at Dave questioningly.

Dave wasn’t so sure though, and after several hours of asking around, nobody could really give him a proper answer. It seemed that nobody knew why they were doing it, or what it was really for.

But of course, in doing so he had also made everyone else think about it, and he had started to make people worry, and now he was also worried; worried that he may be turning into a bit of a grouch.