[Intro] Printer noise. Fluorescent hum. „Season’s greetings, please remember to log your joy in the system.“ [Verse 1] Q4 in the calendar, snow outside the glass, someone books a meeting called „Year-End Cheer Task“. PowerPoint nativity, twelve slides deep, „Key Noël Metrics“ while the boss half-sleeps. There’s a tree in reception with a branded bow, HR dropped a memo titled „Let Your Spirit Glow“. Auto-sent at five-oh-three from „no-reply“, logged „team empathy“ in someone’s KPI. [Pre-Chorus] You wrap your stress in policy, call it „work–life synergy“. [Chorus] Stamp it, call it Christmas, push it through the line, file the joy in triplicate, sign here on the dotted line. Christmas by protocol, as per section 9.3, all emotions pre-approved, attach your heart as .pdf to me. Stamp it, call it Christmas, fire off one more all-staff mail, „Mandatory fun at 16:00, attendance tracked in detail.“ Christmas by protocol, under corporate strip-light snow, less lumen, more human – but that’s not in the scope, you know. [Verse 2] There’s a „Secret Santa“ spreadsheet with conditional rules, max ten euros, no offence, keep it „festive but not cruel“. Someone gets a mug that says „You’re On Mute“, someone gets a voucher for the brand-approved food. Teams call in the evening with a glitching choir, latency on „Jingle Bells“, fake logs in the fire. Boss says, „We’re a family,“ through a ring-light grin, you check your out-of-office you forgot to even switch on in. [Pre-Chorus 2] You outsource every honest thought, call it „change request“, then let it rot. [Chorus] Stamp it, call it Christmas, push it through the line, file the joy in triplicate, sign here on the dotted line. Christmas by protocol, as per section 9.3, all connections time-boxed neatly: fifteen minutes, then you’re free. Stamp it, call it Christmas, schedule time to feel, „Small Talk & Reflection Block“ from 12:10 till the meal. Christmas by protocol, under emails painted gold, we’re „kind regards“ on autopilot, quietly exhausted, over-sold. [Bridge ] Somewhere there’s a kitchen with one kettle on the boil, one kid’s drawing on the fridge, one parent home from toil. No agenda, no invite, just a chair that waits all year, no „resource“ to be allocated, just a human being here. All our unsent little truths stuck in drafts we never try, we attach them to a calendar and watch another year go by. „Did we meet our Christmas targets?“ Who approved this way to live? What if grace was not a bullet-point, just a moment where you give? [Breakdown – chant, stomps & claps] Stamp it, scan it, file it, send, CC half the world, pretend. Forward, defer, decline, amend, mark as read but never send. Archive, archive all your doubt, who signed off on burning out? Rulebook, rulebook on the shelf, who approved not being yourself? [Final Chorus] Stamp it, call it Christmas, push it through the line, file the joy in triplicate, tick „attended, doing fine“. Christmas by protocol, rollout plan for „being nice“, cost-controlled and risk-assessed and benchmarked twice. Stamp it, call it Christmas, launch the „Festive Comms“ cascade, once a year we „value people“ in a branded slideshow parade. Christmas by protocol, same template, different year – less lumen, more human, please… let one small moment slip off-spec and still be „cleared“. [Outro] „Action points: none. Deviation: noted. We’ll let this one slide.“
