Let’s not welcome the Grinch this Christmas

Yesterday morning I found a note written in a child’s handwriting next to my bed. It was an incredibly long list of toys.

“What’s this?” I asked little Egg, who is known to have told her grandmother that she does not believe in Santa any more, but that she keeps up appearances so as “not to spoil it for Dad”.

“It’s my Christmas wish list,” she said. “You can send it to Santa.” When Snapdragon and I inspected the list, some strange items featured. An ironing board playset. A tea set. At least four dolls. A play broom and mop.

“It’s not the kind of toys she likes,” Snapdragon said. “She only likes dogs and cats. I’m sure she copied some of these items from her friend Emma.”

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“I’m more concerned about the length of the list,” I said. “We had negative growth in the third quarter of the year. We are on the verge of another recession…

“We have a real ironing board and an iron. We have real mugs and a kettle. And we have all this house-cleaning equipment she lists here.

“We can teach her to use the real stuff and do some cleaning around the house.”

This is the last Christmas before we go to the polls next year. The ANC, it seems, is not Santa, as we all believed three decades ago.

On the contrary, the liquidators visited Shell House this week – undoubtedly in search of a couch or two from the Cyril range.

And liquidators are the exact opposite of Christmas cheer – call them the Grinches of our country if you will.

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We have given the ANC our wish list: education, healthcare, crime prevention, electricity, job creation, service delivery.

Admittedly a long list, but we would not have cared too much if they didn’t manage to bring each and every one of those toys on our country’s Christmas morning.

Even a reasonable China Mall replacement here and there would have been more than acceptable. But our ruling Santas brought nothing.

Their pockets, together with the pockets of their Mrs Clauses and all their elves, are bulging. Next year, we will be compiling our list of desired leaders and each of us will have to think carefully.

We won’t be able to copy our ballot papers from our friends like Emma. Until then, I’ll have Egg’s list to worry about. That seems a tad simpler – even at the length it is.