Jingle Balls - The Hampstead Trash Christmas Special 2015 Part I

In our annual attempt to alienate all our readers bar those who prescribe to a celebration of capitalism and allowing drunk old men to break into kid's bedrooms, the editorial team are hard-pressed coming up with festive ideas that haven't already been murdered in the Christmas assembly. Of course, we could always go down the tried and tested route of trying to make the nativity story applicable to Muslims and Jews by saying each name in three different languages, but we'll leave that up to that member of the Management/ניהול/إدارتها.

As such, we have been hard at work (does staring at the ceiling count?) coming up with fun ways to end the term other than a story involving Santa as a dead policeman:

Hampstead Drama Durpartmunt presents... 
Christmas Panto I - Jacques and the Beanstalk
Jacques was a young boy who lived with his widowed mother (because gender stereotypes of the early 19th century would not allow a matriarchal figure to have a name, and is merely branded in a possessive nature in connection with her son - see Grauniad Comment is Free) and a cow who was their only source of income. When the cow stopped giving milk, Jacques' mother told him to take the cow to the market to be sold. On the way, he met an old man who offered "magic beans" in exchange for the cow and Jacques, unaware of the plight of street-corner bean dealers, made the trade. When he arrived home that evening without any money, his mother became furious, sending Jacques to bed. In his bedroom, Jacques inspected the magic beans, seeing that they were bright blue with the magic word 'viagra' written on them. Not knowing what they did, he threw them out the window and went to sleep.

Overnight, the magic beans sank into the ground outside the house and, taking effect after 20-30 minutes, a gigantic beanstalk grew erect. In the morning, Jacques was awoken by the screams of his mother, who hadn't seen a beanstalk that large since his father died, which promptly Jacques climbed for no apparent reason.

At an altitude that should have frozen or suffocated the boy, the clouds parted and Jacques found himself in a land high in the sky. There he came to a castle, with a weird oval-shaped thing on top of it. The castle was home to a giant. Jacques broke into the house, despite having two ASBOs already for mounting a unicorn unlawfully and racially abusing a leprechaun. Soon, however, the giant returned, and Jacques had to hide, but the giant sensed that a human was nearby and, as he stomped around with no care for the rules of gravity, boomed:

"Fee-fi-fo-fum!

I smell the lynx of a Hampsteadean, 

Be he alive, or be he dead, 

I'll grind him down because I'm the Head."

But Jacques was cunning and adept at hiding his true self, so after a while, the giant tired and fell asleep. To add insult to injury, Jacques stole a bag of gold coins, giving him his 4th ASBO, before hot-footing it back down the beanstalk.

Jacques returned north up the beanstalk twice more. He learned of other treasures and stole them as the giant sleept: first a goose that lays golden eggs (not realising that an endless supply of gold would vastly diminish the precious metals market that gives the goose immense value - see Financial Times), then some golden university places. However, on the third of his visits, the giant was awoken when Jacques was leaving the castle. The giant chased him down the beanstalk. Jacques called to his mother for an axe. Before the giant could reach the ground, Jacques somehow cut down the massive beanstalk with a normal-size axe, causing the giant to fall to his death. As it had been over four hours since the magic beans took effect, the Beanstalk shrunk back to below average (a problem that as many as 1 in 3 beanstalks suffer from) and Jacques and his mother could live happily ever after, selling off the giant's organs on the Giant Black Market to finance their Malibu beach house and golden goose sanctuary in the Bahamas.

In true Year 10 creative writing fashion, Jacques then wakes up to find it was all a dream, nay, nightmare, that he was a tiny child. He gets out of bed and goes about his business in his castle, pulling the silver linings out of clouds.

LEAKED Jokes from the CaterLink Christmas Crackers:
"Provided by CaterLink, these Hampstead-tailored cracker jokes are bound to make you laugh*" (*although we doubt it). In fact, the crackers from this year's Christmas Dinner didn't even have terrible jokes in them.
- Why did the pigeon cross the road? Because Sam's needed more stock.
- Knock Knock. Who's there? SLT. SLT who? SLT here to interrupt your lesson (what even is this?! -Ed)
- What happened to the student who defamed school propaganda? He was bannered.
- Why do they never serve beer in a maths lesson? Because you can't drink and derive
- What do you get when you cross a chav? Nanked.
- What does a supermodel get for Christmas Dinner? A cracker.
- What did the murderer use to kill someone behind the bikeshed? A 'blunt' weapon.

Hampstead™ School Christmas Gift Ideas

Dank - Eau du Toilette (pour la poubelle)

A Cricklewoodgrad Christmas Hamper - includes 2x Sam's burger, 1x Hampstead School 50th Anniversary Mug, 2x 2l bottle of Boost, a selection of Lynx and a halal turkey

A 'Fruity Language' Fruit Bowl - Hide all your mad writings underneath fruit you will never eat in this amazing gift

Portable Inflatable Pond - now you can dunk Year 7's wherever you want to!

A drone - good for spying on children in lessons (with their damn shirts untucked!) as well as orchestrating airstrikes

A 'Leaders of Tomorrow' poster - for that szpecial someone who has gloomy prospects.

Part II of this year's Jingle Balls Special will be published tomorrow, on the last day of term.