The TRUE history of Crossmas.

"Christmas time, mistletoe and wine." So sang soft pop's eternally pubescent star Little Richard, but really there's a bit more to it than that, we thinks.

The true story of Xmas - Crossmas, as it was originally called - has almost been lost in the annals of time. The Bible tells us that many moons ago (about 2 million moons) there lived an overweight carpenter called Santa Claus who was a teacher at the local woodwork college.

Santa's son, a young layabout with a beard called Jesus was studying at the college trying to get his CSE. It was coming up to winter time and young Jesus had an end of term project to hand in. He was going to construct a big wooden cross which criminals could be nailed to, for various crimes, like getting your wife stoned.

But Jesus was a typical lazy teenager. Sure enough, he chopped down a pine tree to make the big wooden cross out of, but then became distracted and left it in his father's living room for a week.

Santa Claus became very angry (like a hot, cross bunny) at seeing the pine tree propped up against the sofa every day and decided to teach young Jesus a lesson. So he nailed him to the top of the tree.

Jesus was so scared he nearly shit. Which is why children eat chocolate eggs at Xmas and make "yule logs". It's also where the phrase "Holy Shit" comes from.

For 12 days Jesus writhed around in pain, and eventually on the 13th day (unlucky for some) he died and turned into a fairy. Santa Claus, realising he had done wrong became very upset, and to alleviate his guilt he went off on his sledge around the world giving out presents to children like a latter day Jimmy Saville.