Christmas is the saddest festival in the year. Anyone who is alone feels even more alone. Anyone who is poor becomes a beggar. Relatives that you would never even dream of meeting up with, and some of whom you had even forgotten about their existence, turn up at your door. People that you bump into only on two occasions: 25 December and funerals, smile at you and keep on kissing you. Why? Houses turn into rubbish tips after the opening of the presents whose packaging costs more than the actual contents. There’s always the presence of an aunt or a granny who gets transformed into the domestic cleanliness person with loads of rubbish bags, one for plastic stuff, one for glass, one for paper and cardboard. We are all better. Beggars, by now delivering a strong presence in the cities, are difficult to distinguish from the normal passersby. Yesterday I gave 20 cents to a bank clerk who was rummaging through the rubbish bin and he was even affected by it. The beauty of Christmas is that it covers everything, like snow, like Berlusconi. You forget that you are a precarious worker, or unemployed, or laid off, and Marchionne seems like one of the Three Kings with the Swiss myrrh. “Made in China” is overwhelming. It’s the triumph of "Merry China Christmas", every object under the Christmas tree comes from the far off Far East, but however it’s produced by Italian companies. We export capital to import toys. It’s the globalisation of Baby Jesus. Immense pine trees are raised up in Milan’s “piazza del Duomo” and in the Vatican City, cut off at the roots, sacrificed, decorated with streamers and fairy lights for unsustainable festivities. However Christmas is still Christmas and to some more than others I want to send my best wishes this year: to the fathers. To those fathers who are afraid they will not be able to give a dignified life to their children, who they see with eyes glued to the window of a toy shop and they feel like non-entities because they cannot afford a present. To the fathers who are alone, because they are separated, whose Christmas is contained in a telephone call: “Hi Dad! – I’ve got to go now…..” To those who never give up for their children and accept any job, whatever the humiliation they have to suffer. How many are there of these modern heroes who are working but underpaid, who are accepting risky work and who sometimes die so that they can bring home a wage? The ones that put their heads down and give up on every type of pride? It is they who are the true Father Christmases even though sometimes their sack is empty. The light they have in their eyes when they look at you, and I’m also thinking of my dad, is a gift that you won’t find again if you lose it.” Happy Christmas from Beppe Grillo