Let the Bells Ring Out for the Death of Christmas!

It’s November, which means that our supermarkets have undertaken a festive make-over, with snow, trees and jingling bells, submerging unsuspecting shoppers into a grumbling apprehension that they once again have to be full of “festive cheer”.

It wouldn’t matter so much if Sainsburys, Tesco and Asda hadn’t been stuffing tinsel down throats before kids had even had the chance to scare us with their Halloween costumes!

Christmas used to be a time for celebration, religion, seeing family and eating well. It still stands for most of these things, but there has been a modern, consumer-centered, sinister spin. Christmas has turned into a time where children demand expensive gifts, and people strive to achieve the “perfect” Christmas depicted in its full fluorescent glory. Christmas now revolves around the modern families Holy Grail, the television, all in the comfort of their isolated homes.

The main issue arising from this sorry state of affairs is the Western World’s insistence on ensuring that everything becomes commercialised. Christmas should be about spending time laughing with family and friends, not about expensive gifts and an inanimate box of wires.

#FirstWorldProblems

It’s enough to make you want to throw back up your organic M&S turkey, especially when you see people Tweeting messages such as “am I the only one in the world who didn’t get an iPhone for Christmas?” – I’m sorry to inform you, @Liljumpraya,  that no, you are not the only person in the world; the millions of starving children in Africa also did not receive an iPhone. Shocking. What selfish parents they have! For the sanity of humanity, one can only hope that @vbellz_moriarty was the only person to “cry for 2 hours straight” because their Mummy and Daddy didn’t give them their car on Christmas day. How dare they make her wait a day?!

This also highlights the issue of the “Christmas Shoppers”; the people who, like synchronised ants, unnecessarily fill up the roads, paths and shopping aisles all in the name of consumerism – YAY!

The pointless gifts they are wasting hard, cold cash on will probably be less than appreciated, and the recipients, through their forced smiles of gratitude, will be hoping there is a gift receipt caught somewhere in the cheery, ripped up remains of Rudolf’s smiling paper face.

A more minor issue is that you’re expected to be nice to everyone. Not that being nice to people is a bad thing, but why it is suddenly expected that everyone should get on and be happy for one day of the year astounds me. What about the other 364 days? Should we be nice to Rebecca Black too, because it’s Christmas? It’s illogical and irrational, and Christmas isn’t even on a Friday this year…

If you don’t get on with your family every other day of the year, it’s unlikely that Santa will have given them a personality change in their stocking, and so you’re probably not going to get on with them when you’re celebrating the birth of a person you probably don’t even believe existed!

However much the adverts might try to convince you otherwise, Christmas is not magical, and the twinkling lights of the family Christmas tree probably won’t ease the sharp tension that exists every other day of the year.

Roll on December 26th. Until then I’m going to the Winchester to wait for it all to blow over and binge on Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference mince pies and brandy cream until I pass out. Bah-humbug.