Christmas is Officially Allowed to Start Now
In my previous post I mentioned hating Christmas, and my loathing was seconded by a reader who writes this rather interesting and very personal blog.
As November is over and the worst of the house trauma appears to be behind us, at least for now, I suddenly find myself spat out into the world of Christmas. Honestly, I think Christmas has improved this year, in the British Isles at least. The single most offensive thing about Christmas is, of course, the greed, and that seems a little more under control than usual.
I’ve read a lot about crazy Christians in America getting all over-excited about ‘The War on Christmas’. To my non-American readers, and I must confess to myself as well, both sides of this argument strike me as being completely insane. Removing the term ‘Christmas’ from Winter celebration stuff seems completely fucking pointless to me.
If a Muslim wishes you ‘Happy Ramadan’, a Chinese ‘Happy New Year’ in February or a Jew ‘Happy Hannukah’ and it in any way hurts your feelings, you are… sheesh, just so pointlessly, tediously pusillanimous that I can’t even be bothered thinking up a pithy put-down. Just fucking well gird your loins, clench your teeth and get over it. It might be worse. You might have colon cancer. In fact, you probably deserve colon cancer.
That said, these things are sensitive in the States at the moment and, pointless as it is, in the current environment the government probably can’t talk Christmas without having to include every last stupid religious festival in their considerations including, presumably, some potentially rather cool ones for the Scientologists, hopefully involving volcanoes and spaceships and nymphomaniac space babes. Predictably, the Conservative Christian Right are painting this as some sort of Darwinist, Librul, baby-raping War on Christmas. How depressingly inevitable.
All in all it is a trivial, childish argument, and both sides should be fucking ashamed of themselves that this puerile discussion is even taking place. Christmas is not a Christian ceremony and never has been. It is a pagan rite that was co-opted because the early church realised that they could never force people to give it up, and a softer line would stand a far better chance of keeping things under control. This in turn would allow people to adopt Christianity without having to reject the entire basis of their spiritual lives up to that point. Tactically sound thinking, I’m sure you’d agree. Read the Bible. There is no mention of Santa Claus, reindeer or mince pies anywhere.
The real war on Christmas, and the one the dismally narrow-sighted religious right utterly fail to grasp, is the fact that it is becoming so ubiquitous it is now an entirely secular festival based upon the worship of that oh so twenty-first century god: greed.
If you want to find the War on Christmas look in your shops and at your advertising. A potentially brilliant celebration of family and friendship and generosity and warmth and winter has been distorted into a grotesque carnival of avarice and envy and pornographic acquisitiveness. So fuck Christmas and fuck the retail sector. Don’t waste your money on tat, spend it going to see your mates and spending time with your kids and appreciating being indoors in the warmth on a freezing cold night, with nothing more than a glass of wine, a bit of Tom Waits and a warm cuddle for company.
Tom Waits – Silent Night
Hear, hear. I can’t stand it. What has this thing become? I’m teaching my kids to be good acquisitive Americans while spending vast quantities of time and money purchasing loot for grown men and women who could perfectly well afford this shit themselves if they wanted it. Yet if there’s anything more obnoxious than giving gifts that people don’t need it’s giving gifts that bear some subtle or ironic “message” about the giver’s attitude toward Christmas. Other people don’t really need to be burdened with my navel-gazing. As always, I’ll swallow hard and swipe the card. And drink deeply and often.
Or you could try our approach, C&B. We are simply not going to buy presents for anyone except immediate family. In a couple of years they’ll get the message and stop buying us shit, and in a couple more they may be over the offence too.
Ha ha! I grew up in an Irish Catholic household my innocent young man! That means that “immediate family” is defined by the first 14 levels of the table of consanguinity. You do make a good point, though. It’s just that for many in the family there’s no greater gift I could provide than an occasion for taking offence.
Campfires O’Battlefields
For me it means brother and folks. Maybe Granddad. That’s it. Everyone else… ah, fuck ‘em. My next door neighbour bought us something this year. He (or, more to the point, his missus) is about to be disappointed.
Mind you, she complains that we don’t sweep our step enough, so I am certain an opportunity for a nice superior sniff will suit her down to the ground.
…& a Happy New Year
Miserable cunts, the lot of you.
)
Seriously, points well made Mr. T..
Each year we get a Winter Wonderland outdoor Ice Rink here (modelled on the Rockefeller in NY) & that, plus the bandstand, the fairground & gypsy market, makes me feel like a wide-eyed naif all over again.
I don’t care who poo-pahs it or thumbs the whole season, I’m a bleeding heart romantic & don’t give a Wizard of Oz flying monkey’s shit who knows; I’ll cry at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life & settle down with the ladywife with popcorn & bucks fizz for the Gremlins movies. Fuck, I’ll even coo & awww through a Charlie Brown Christmas, Disney Classic Clip shows with Michaela Strachan & re-runs of The Royle Family.
But, then, I’m equally as likely to spend the whole day cooking the Christmas meal for friends & family — something that gives me far more enjoyment & a stomach full of Ready Brek-like glow than receiving or giving gifts of suitability guestimation proportions.
I appreciate the Christmasses of my youth far more now (financially struggling but terminally happy & generous family) &, as a result, enjoy this time of year now as I ache & pop my way towards the graveyard of my maturity.
DC
God bless us, every one.
I must admit to a certain affection for the whole Scrooge mythos. The Albert Finney musical version is a tradition in my family, and is delightfully camp. Scrooge is taken to hell by about 20 well-oiled body builder types wearing these S&M outfits and masks. And for me, Bob Cratchit is a high tenor of ambiguous sexuality with only the most tenuous grip on reality.
You are somewhat pre-empting my next post here lads, but I don’t hate christmas, I just hate Christmas, if you get my drift.
I’m always surprised how many people, when asked, profess to agree with the themes raised on this thread. Because if so many people feel this way; then who the hell are those glassy-eyed hordes, sweating beneath layers of scarves, coats and hats, traipsing in and out of Marks & Spencer, dragging their carrier-bag laden knuckles along after them, every evening when I walk through town?
It’s generally us, isn’t it? And I’m fascinated, and at the same time a little disgusted, about how the general consensus seems to be that Christmas has become an over-commercialised carnival of crap, but yet we seem reluctant to actually do anything that might prevent Santa’s corporate tat-laden sleigh from rolling over us each year.
Now, does anyone have any ideas what I should get my mum?
Just try living in the middle of the aforementioned apocalyptic battle between stupidity and brainlessness. I assure you that there’s no fun to be had!
Someone I work with related her ‘Black Friday’ stories to me just recently – while I couldn’t help but be amused at the downright absurdity of it all, I was simultaneously depressed at how heartless and inconsiderate this supposed ‘celebration’ seems to make the general populace. The co-worker explained how she was forced to literally throw a shopping cart in the path of another woman because this person had run ahead of everyone that had been waiting in line.
Now, she had a firm grasp on why it was wrong for the woman to jump ahead, but no concept of why it might be wrong for a 21 year-old girl to throw a shopping cart at a 60+ year-old woman.
I hope everyone else started to kick the old bitch once she was down.
Dylan’s right though, it’s incredibly difficult to refuse to take part in all this rubbish. You have to be pretty fucking determined.
We should start a campaign for a Buy-Nothing Christmas, where all but the smallest presents are taboo and money and, above all, time spent on family things is encouraged.
Amen and right on brotha on the main post, Matthew.
I especially loved the line “A potentially brilliant celebration of family and friendship and generosity and warmth and winter has been distorted into a grotesque carnival of avarice and envy and pornographic acquisitiveness” … not only because its true but also because its a great bit of writing. “Grotesque carnival of avarice…” that just rumbles in the throat in such a delightfully anglo-saxon way … it’s practically poetry, man!
But Dylan is right: so often it is we who complain the loudest about Christmas who are the biggest hypocrites. The whole thing is a big addiction. Like any addiction, what makes it so damn hard to quit is that it’s difficult to disentangle the good parts from the bad parts.
And there are no easy solutions. You say we should just give gifts to immediate family. I don’t know… taking a moment to show appreciation and/or forgiveness to your neighbours and other minor actors in your life… isn’t that an important, life-affirming thing to do too? It’s hard to say.
It’s a nice thing to do, perhaps, but that can be done in so many other ways than the buying of presents.
The last time Mrs Toad and I were at my folks’ place for Christmas the presents were being handed out and everyone realised we hadn’t bothered to get anything for each other – neither of us had bothered.
And yet, with the walks and the reading on the couch together and the cooking expeditions and all that, it made not a jot of difference to the Christmas spirit and to how nice it was, although my parents looked briefly shocked!
If I had forgotten to get my wife a Christmas present my parents’ faces would have looked briefly shocked as well, particularly when little wifey drive her foot into their son’s groin.
It wasn’t as bad as all that. We both knew the other hadn’t really bothered yet and we both just let it slide because it’s really not that important to us. Then it got to the day and we still hadn’t bothered.
We’re pretty indulgent with one another on a daily basis, occasions like Valentine’s and Christmas seem a bit pointless. But then, we’re still in the honeymoon period I suppose.
Admittedly, I sort of enjoy shopping for other people at Christmas because I have to be stingy with shopping for myself, and holidays are an excuse to buy crap. Plus, I’ve got a small family spread out across the country, so since I don’t see any of them, I have to buy them gifts instead. Damn grandparents.
Also, I’ve found that people don’t raise an eyebrow if you’re not Jewish but wish them a Happy Chanukah nonetheless. Highly recommended, as Chanukah is far less depressing than Christmas.
Well, this year I’m really looking forward to a lower case ‘c’ christmas as I’m orf to Lampeter (West Wales) for my 5 yearly reprieve whereby I get to be cooked for, arse-wiped & watered in total fireglow comfort.
Having worked my testicles into balloon animal shapes this year, & having cooked for friends, family, Mrs Country, etc. for the past 5years on the trot (I, Mrs C. & a few friends are vegetarian, so you have to be a little more creative each year to keep the ooh’s & ahh’s & mmm’s at an acceptable level), not that I don’t enjoy it, I’m looking forward to being spolied a little by Mrs C.’s Ma — & what a bloody excellent cook she is too. There’s even a heated hostess trolley.
It may be a little self-indulgent, but I’m due some pampering.
It’s generally us, isn’t it? — you’d think, but in my case no Dylan.
I’ve not done a physical Christmas shop for years — for me, everything is purchased on-line from the comfort of my own self-satisfied, pushchair-free non-shin-smashed smugness.
I gave up trying to run with the hunters when I realised you can finish the whole bloody lot within a day from the safety of your own favourite chair.
The C21st may be littered with far too much pseudo-science/techie gobbledegook & fiddly gadgetry what we old folks don’t seem to quite know how to mind manage, & we may criticise the dumbed-down lazy reliance on nano-time saving elec-trickery, but this here interweb is most certainly bloody good for those satisfying J R Hartley moments.
How else would I find forgotten vinyl gems for Mrs C. such as the Because Mad, Scared Dumb & Gorgeous LP & Furniture’s The Wrong People (original STIFF release, mind) LP?
Saint Nick/Old Nick (Santa/Satan) is alive & well in Drunk Country House by crikey
)
DC, I think you may have stumbled upon the true spirit of the 21st christmas there. I salute you.
I wonder if I can get Santa as a Facebook buddy…
Actually, my colleagues think I throw money about front and centre because I buy virtually everything from the internet and have it delivered to work, to make sure it arrives properly. The fact that I never set foot in a shop of course passes them by completely. I try and point out that if I came with them every time they went shopping I’d think they bought loads of stuff too, but they don’t get it. I am still some sort of mad shopping obsessive in their eyes.