The internet is a scary place, for many reasons, it’s a playground where you decide what happens, who you play with, and who you want to play with you. The possibilities are seemingly endless and that’s where the nightmare of realization rears it’s ugly head – What the HELL would you do if it wasn’t there?

It doesn’t bear thinking about, it’s always gonna be there, right? Getting bigger, better and faster every day, with more wonders to behold….. But what, yes, WHAT the hell would you do if you didn’t have the chance to log-in and tune out?

Ponder for a moment how much of your life and the essential gadgets you use are all plugged into this world-wide-winder? Without you realising it you have, somehow, transferred pretty much your whole life (and dependence) over to this virtual world.

Friends, chat, correspondence, study, fun, gaming, dating, pr0n, gawd the list goes on and on. But think for a moment about the more ‘essential’ duties that you have given over to this cruel mistress – Your banking & consumer rights.

Yep, and here’s a good example, with Christmas looming be honest with yourself, just how many presents did you buy last year for friends, family, and more importantly, self?

The Christmas season is one of expected joy. And fighting with the masses over that last Buzz Light-Year. Or at least it used to be, but now in the second decade of the 21st century while we may not have flying cars, self-lacing shoes, buildings that can compliment your hair; we do have the vast and expansive tubes of the internet.

Without which you wouldn’t be able to click a mouse button and purchase all the presents you’ll ever need, from auntie’s fake tan to grandma’s plastic sheet to your little bro’s violent video game.

Whether you’re using your iPad, your netbook, or your laptop or Mac Book, having to lug your sorry ass down the shops to barge shoulders with the shopping hordes—as bewildered, stressed, overwhelmed and distraught as Santa must feel on Christmas Eve—would be a terrifying and traumatic experience.

Every shopping day running up to Christmas seems to come and go as quick as your childhood, flying by like the rolling landscapes out the backseat car window on the way to visit relatives—tangibly there but not reachable.

So imagine this if you dare: an internet free Christmas. I know, it’s not something to raise a glass of sherry to, unless it was to drown your despair. And it isn’t even just about having to actually go out and shop for presents, as much of a ball-ache as that would be. No, imagine teenagers having to sit through the day without being able to nip off and IM their mates.

Or you’ve just gone to the trouble of buying a console for your kid and they can’t get online in the holidays to headshoot a stranger in New Zealand.

Or checking emails, even though you’re not due back at work for 2 weeks and you said you’d rather sit through an epic brain-dulling soap opera Christmas special than work in the holidays. And forget sending ecards to people. Hah! Instead your sloth-like, keyboard-limbed self will have to go through the unremitting, physical, hand-numbing horror of first buying, then writing out, then posting—oh the humanity!—all those retched cards.

As if you haven’t got better things to do, like chat on Facebook. But hang on, there won’t be any Facebook. Holy crucified Santa! They’ll be no tweeting or FBing. No social networking. Nada. Not one byte. The only bites you’ll be getting are when Christmas dinner’s served.

Just let that sink in, like a snowman made from cat piss melting onto your living room rug. Ugh. Not too pretty a thought is it.

You won’t be able to open your Twitter feed and scan news headlines to satiate the information-junkie twitching within, or see what festive witticisms are (Brussels?) sprouting from your friends’/celebrities’ feeds.

No FB status updates declaring “Just ate some breast. Lol!” Go on. Imagine it. A webless world.

A world of board games and dozing off in front of TV programmes as entertaining as gout.

Of playing charades with your grandparents like it was 1992. Christ, you might even have to leave the house over the holidays. Even when it’s not snowing, where’s the fun in that? If there’s no internet, then the only way through the suffocating horror of it all is to pick up an extra crate of Johnny Walker and drink yourself into a stupor, stomping about like Scrooge with a hangover.

Just the thought of no internet connection is a horror story best left for another annual holiday: Halloween.