Oxymoron

"Well Teddy," Jonah said. "Here we are again. Christmas Eve and it's just the two of us."

"Yeah, well, shame Elena decided to go back to Italy." Teddy said, taking a sip of imaginary white wine from his imaginary glass. "What are you going to do without the free pizza? You might end up having to call Domino's. Remind me to take cover when you pull out your wallet and the moths fly out."

"Very funny. No I stuffed some of the goodies from the office in a Sainsburys bag while no one was looking. We should have enough to last the evening."

"Well that's good; last I heard they don't do ham and cheese toasties in Foxtrots."

"Give it a rest will you? Pass me the tv magazine and let's see what's on the box."

Jonah picked up the copy of tv choice from the coffee table. "Oh look, my facebook friend on the front cover." He said, showing off to his distribution list.

"Yeah well, even if you are one of only 160 friends she still blanked out the registration number of her car so stalkers like you can't see it."

"How about Men Behaving Badly Christmas Special?" Jonah said, ignoring Teddy's last comment.

"We don't need to watch Men Behaving Badly, we've been living it in this house since 1996. Or at least we did, until you stopped buying cans of Stella and started drinking white wine like a big girl. Aren't there any decent Christmas films on?"

"Decent Christmas films?" Jonah said, incredulously. "Well there's an oxymoron if ever there was one. There's no such thing as a decent Christmas film, Teddy."

"So what's that copy of It's A Wonderful Life doing on your bookshelf?"

"It came as a freebie from one of my mail order companies years ago."

"Yeah right! Like the companies who advertise in the back pages of the News of The World send out copies of It's A Wonderful Life with bulk orders for adult films!"

"It was from a company called Black Star. They sent it as a Christmas present for being a loyal customer."

"Then surely they'd have known Snow White and the Seven D*ldos would be more your scene? And if I'm not mistaken, that is a copy of Love Actually on the shelf above."

"Well that's not really a Christmas film is it? Just a very good Richard Curtis rom-com which happens to be set at Christmas time."

"Not that you noticed when you saw it at the cinema. You were too busy ogling Miss Knightley. I hope we're not going to end up homeless and destitute, now that she's in a West End show. I hate to think how many times you'll go and see it"

"No Teddy, I've got some, ahem, savings put aside for that." Jonah said, checking he had hidden the shotgun used in the robbery on Commercial Road earlier.

"Well if there's one Christmas film you will like, it's on BBC2 now." Teddy said, pointing at the TV listings.

"Scrooge? Well that's a classic Dickens tale. How could anyone not like it?"

"Surprised they haven't asked you to play the main character," Teddy laughed. "You wouldn't even have to act, just be your normal tight-fisted self."

"Bob Cratchit more like, on my salary. Except at least he didn't have to work with loud women who made his life a misery."

"I'll grant you that, you poor b*stard," Teddy said, raising his imaginary glass and clinking it with Jonah's. "The fact that you've kept your sense of humour and are still writing these emails says an awful lot about you. Tell you what, as a special treat, why don't you watch your favourite film of all time? You know the one with Michael Caine in it."

Jonah's face lit up. "The Italian Job?"

"No, we only watch that on your birthday, remember? The other one."

"Alright then. You're on." Jonah said.

And with that, the two best friends settled back and started their annual viewing of A Muppet Christmas Carol.