The ugly underbelly of festive frolics…

Like wild animals broken loose from captivity, married men – and women – drunk and depraved, have been prowling the streets of Omagh over the last lock of weekends.

It happens every year, but still it has to be seen to be believed.

Because, no matter how hard I try, from one year to the next, I cannot commit these septic scenes to memory – not in a way that is even fractionally faithful to the true extent of their in-the-moment mayhem, anyway.

When the drunken days of December roll around, recollections of Christmases past inevitably pale in comparison to the filthy reality that lies in wait.

Yes. Christmas might be a Holy time of year, but in this day and age, nothing is sacred.

While half of us celebrate the birth of the immaculately-conceived King with a lock of prayers and maybe an aul’ carol or two, the other half take to the town, bathing the streets in grime and gore.

If the Sacred Heart is the epicentre of the celebrations for the holier half of the local populace, then John Street is home to the altars at which the rest of us choose to worship.

And it was on this sinful stretch of street that I witnessed an uglier – and no less true – side of Christmas a couple of times this year. On several occasions, I looked on as John Street’s wild-eyed denizens trudged and swayed through this dystopian landscape, hugging and singing, cursing, and squealing.

But, among a few strong contenders, it was Boxing Night that proved the most hedonistic, the most decadent of all.

Those of you who seen it with your own eyes will agee; on the night of St Stephen’s, John Street and her inhabitants looked like the tortured creation of some unhinged avant-garde director.

Yes, too hot for Hollywood, it was like a sequence from a zombie apocalypse film – but with enough bodily fluids to bust the gut of even the most strong-stomached nurse.

It was blood and boke. Shame and guilt. Depravity and derangement.

Voluminous sieges of drink had almost universally been taken, rendering, in the space of a few hours, people unrecognisable from their former selves; sordid perversions of the people they were just hours before.

And among the many disgraces seen, the worst were the married.

Let there be no doubt about it. Married people, freed from their partners, are the worst people you will meet at Christmastime.

Sure, the single young fella who fails to get himself a woman might be up for a row, but there is something in the temporary emancipation of a husband from his wife – or visa versa – that makes them dangerous in a way that few other creatures can ever be.

You see, if Christmas has taught me anything, it is this: The married are a crazy breed.

Much like badgers and polar bears, they spend most of the year holed up in their dens. There, locked away behind closed doors, they are – for the most part – safe and harmless.

However, terrifyingly, this is not where their kinship with badgers and polar bears ends.

Because, just like their less- sophisticated mammalian cousins, there inevitably comes a time of the year when the married decide to leave their respective burrow or cave, emerge into the cold light of day, rub the blears from their eyes, and go absolutely mental.

This is the state in which you are likely to encounter the married at Christmastime.

Those men and women, perfectly fit to keep up half-domesticated appearances from January through to early December, are changed utterly by the December air.

Shedding any semblance of civility, they don their Christmas jumpers and set forth towards the town, their minds and bodies soon to be warped by strong drink, and newfound liberty.

At the time of writing, we are in the void that lingers between Christmas and the New Year, and, so far, anyway, I have managed to avoid coming to any major harm at the hands of the married.

However, while the greatest threat has past, we are not entirely in the safezone yet.

So, if you find yourself in the town between now and January 1, remain vigilant and mind yourself well.

Feral spouses are still on the loose, and will remain so for another week or thereabouts.

Approach – or avoid – with an appropriate measure of caution.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.