Christmas time looms again. The shops are full of decorations and exhortations for you to spend your hard-earned money. While it is fine for the landed gentry, I always feel sorry for those who are unable to splash out at this time. Do they feel they are missing out or are inferior in some way if they don't buy fancy foods and glittering Christmas tree decorations, or perhaps failing as parents if they can't afford to give their children the latest cellphone or game or other electronic device? You will never see an advert urging you to go without presents at Christmas.
Then, as soon as you have maxed your credit to buy these goods, the messages start to come in about how much it is going to cost you for school uniforms and school fees and paying your December bills in January, so it doesn't look like a Happy New Year.
While I have nothing against celebrating what is, after all, a Christian religious holiday and should be of no interest to anyone not of that persuasion, consumerism has stepped in to strip it of any religious significance whatsoever. Perhaps it would be better to transfer the commercial aspect to New Year, which would at least serve a purpose as a party to say farewell to the old and welcome a new phase of our lives. The current New Year celebrations are pretty much a damp squib coming so soon after Christmas. And those presents could be saved for birthdays when it is easier to splash out on one special person at a time.
Maybe a special day spent with loved ones (not just family, but anyone who could do with a little caring) would bring back some meaning to the celebration of the birth of Jesus, whose message was peace, hope, love, humility and charity. I think it would be infinitely preferable to the frenzied commercialism we are subjected to for two months of the year.
Our family has been doing this for a few years now and we have found a low-key Christmas and New Year party really work well.
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