The Christmas Club 0-2006

The Christmas Club was found dead this weekend at its home in Farepak. Police believe it had disturbed burglars who may have made off with a Xmas hamper worth up to £40 million . They have warned members of the public not to approach the thieves or their associates, who may be posing as bankers, city gents and incompetent regulators.

The Christmas Club was conceived in the year 0 when a young, impoverished woman from Judea began saving the Almighty's seed in the nine months before December 25th. Fortunately, her husband’s ire at being betrayed by his wife and having to spend the festive season in a barn, was somewhat mollified by the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

The Christmas Club quickly bloomed, enabling peasants throughout the ages to put aside a groat a week and enjoy a magical Yuletide – unless their family had been killed by the plague, killed by invading Anglo-Saxon or Viking or Norman hordes, killed by the King’s Men for gathering winter fu-el in the forest, killed for looking at the King’s deer funny, or their family had been sold into slavery in order to make the weekly payments on the Christmas Club.

But it was with the introduction of the modern Christmas as we know it by Prince Albert (famous for stapling his Christmas cracker to his baubles) that the Christmas Club became popular throughout the great Victorian slums, workhouses, and poorhouses that made Great Britain the best country in the world.

Fattened by the increasing aspirational pressure applied by Our Lord Santa in the glittery advertisements shown from as early as late October on 72” flat screen tellies (Available from all good electrical outlets), the Christmas Club became as bloated as one of its turkey-style Christmas roasts. In this state it inevitably attracted the interest of the murkier elements of the corporate world, an interest which was to lead to The Club's demise.

The Christmas Club was buried in an over-priced hamper this weekend at St Scrooge’s Church. The congregation sang Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody. The service was attended by friends and family including the National Lottery, National Insurance and Pension Scemes. The Christmas Club is survived by the Halifax Bank of Scotland Bank, numerous other High Street banks and a vast mountain of Christmas debt.