Paul Little: Dread, grinches and do-gooders

Thousands of diners at an Auckland City Mission Christmas dinner. Photo / Greg Bowker

For most of us, Christmas is a time of unrelieved joy - crackers, carols and cake - but a significant number of people fear the festive season. For them it is the saddest time of all, one they dread for the rest of the year. It is only fitting, therefore, that we pause in the midst of our merriment to acknowledge them.

First of all, those who minister to the needy on a regular basis and who find themselves overwhelmed by hordes of hipster do-gooders wanting to pitch in and do their bit by dishing up the tucker at the mass charity Christmas dinners turned on for the city's indigent.

What those dedicated charity workers would most like is help during the rest of the year, provided by people doing it for the right reasons, not just to make themselves feel good.

Funeral directors, who are invariably called out to arrange funerals on Christmas Day because those on the way out have hung on for one last Christmas with their loved ones and made it to December 25 and then fallen off the perch.

Bus drivers. Not only do they work on Christmas Day, but they also ferry the most joyless people of all - those so bereft of near and dear that no one has volunteered to give them a lift.

Anyone who has a work Christmas party.

The poor sods who have to write the Queen's Christmas speech. It's probably not their only job, and obviously it brings with it some cachet, but what a nightmare task it must be.

After 62 years, how many different ways can you come up with a way to say: "Well, goodness, dearie me, there have been some jolly terrible things happening this year, so next year let's all try to get on with each other a bit better"? It doesn't help that whatever you write will be delivered by someone who has never got a handle on comic timing.

They earn every penny and then some.

Gym staff, from about December 1, who are confronted by lines of people who have suddenly woken up to the fact that drinking and eating as if there's no tomorrow hasn't been the best way to get themselves in shape, and who turn up at the gym insisting on being made beach-ready within a month.

Some people, try as they might, just don't get the Christmas spirit thing at all.

I'm thinking of the Automobile Association. It clearly knows Christmas has something to do with giving and being nice to each other, but its slew of promotional emails with the subject line: "Turn your Christmas presents into fuel savings" rather missed the point.

Speaking of unseasonal bad news, the grinches at the Treasury have dropped a desiccated rat into the Government's eggnog by announcing we will not enjoy the benefits of a surplus in the national operating accounts in the 2014-15 financial year.

Instead, we must brace ourselves for a projected $772 million deficit. Finance Minister Bill English explained that the Government would not be delivering the promised surplus because of "unusual" economic conditions.

I have been on this planet for 57 years. I have no idea how much time is left to me in what is clearly a fragile existence. But I spend each day in hope that before I pass on I will, just once, have a chance to experience "usual" economic conditions.