Oxford bans Christmas, Forces Residents to Celebrate 'Winterval'

Yorkshire led the way this year, banning Christmas in September.

Now Oxfordshire is following suit in the inevitable annual Christmas banning frenzy, as council elders have decreed that Christmas is too obsecene and exclusive. Instead, they will force local residents to celebrate the 'Winter Light Festival', a carnival of debauchery, sado-masochism and BBC programming.

The scheme to replace Christmas with 'Winter Light', or 'Winterval', comes from faceless multi-national corporation 'Oxford Inspires', whose managing director may or may not be someone evil like Dracula, or possibly even the Grinch himself. Tei Williams, a PR bot representing the shadowy organisation roared victoriously: 'In Oxfordshire we have Winter Light which is a whole festival spanning two months [Bwahahaha-haw haw!]'.

Inside sources have revealed that attendance at the daily Winterval goat burnings will be compulsory for all Oxford residents; anyone daring not to attend will be tied naked to a great burned Christmas tree and beaten with rolls of wrapping paper.

Ed Turner, a hunchbacked senior Oxford council minion, spat defensively: 'We are not Christmas killers', before shuffling back into his cave to burn some letters to Santa and stamp on a rocking-horse. However, his claim was undermined by an Oxford Labour councillor who admitted: 'I am a PC Christmas-cancelling Christian-hating leftist loony Labour Scrooge'