St Nicholas Dunn-McAfee has his Claus out for Christmas…
Christmas is unfortunately everywhere. Like deliberating flu, disruptive snow or a dangerous addiction to buying vintage jumpers, it’s unavoidable. Comparable to a great cultural behemoth rising from its reluctant slumber in the depths of bitter winter, it towers over every aspect of our lives until appeased. The “festive” season, as history has optimistically termed this time of year, is nearly upon us.
Scratch that – Christmas is upon us. The television is dominated by adverts depicting the perfect family Christmas; the John Lewis adverts crooning “Please, please, please, let me get what I want”. The wanton desire here is almost certainly to make any intelligent viewer gag on the horrific display of sentimentalism that wouldn’t be out of place in Dickens novel, when something cliché happens to an alliteratively named character. Even worse than John Lewis trying to lull me into warm puddles of my own tears, Iceland is taking the opportunity to insist that I eat my own weight in questionable looking vol-au-vents. Gracing our screens once again under the flimsy guise of “tradition”, the Coca Cola advert returns. Merry Christmas one and all, enjoy consuming the exact same drink you’ve tippled on a regular occasion all year, except rebranded with a pseudo-cultural icon emblazoned on can until the end of December. I won’t even begin to ruminate on why the world thinks it necessary to consume a thirst-quenching and ice-cold beverage at the time of year when your study-room is comparable with a freezer, a warm freezer. The logics of Christmas escape me, but unfortunately I can’t escape Christmas.
This is what we’ve had to live with since the start of November. The entire country seems blissfully unaware that Christmas is not in November. It becomes almost impossible to distinguish between the day of Christmas and the season-spanning event of “Christmas”. These realisations are, as one might have noticed, irrelevant in the world of profits and market shares. Each shop has its own version of luxurious indulgence on Christmas day or heart-warming family bonding the night before. Whether conscious to this or not, billions of people around the globe don’t celebrate Christmas, they buy into Christmas. As much as you like to think they generally care about your happiness, the fact is they only care about your money. As much as they think they’re selling you a little slice of festive joy, the fact is you only care about it being more extravagant than the year before. Marx would be spinning in his grave, but not before someone covered his tomb with tinsels, or adorned his bust with a friendly red-nosed reindeer.
This entire period of Christmas is predicated on consuming: consuming family time with meaningless activities involving relations you just can’t relate to, consuming everything over-priced in the shops because everyone else is and joining the crowd makes you feel complete or consuming the ritualised turkey whose species must dread this time of year. The line between acceptable and unacceptable becomes blurred as the entire country reluctantly exchange utterances of festive cheer without any real meaning behind the words.
Christmas occupies the peculiar space of hyperreality in our modern culture. So desperate to achieve its own inflated image, each Christmas steps further and further away from reality. On the brink of the surreal, Christmas has become so focused on embodying tradition that it moves from the realms of reality to the domain of utter madness.
There is nothing about Christmas that is normal, sane or in any way realistic. Wrapped in falseness, with a bow of enforced joviality and your name written in the matte black ink of greed, 21st century Christmas is an unwanted gift each year that society refuses to let you return to the shop.
…Whilst Santa Simmons Ho Ho Ho-pes you have a fantastic festive season!
Now, Wizard, I don’t “Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday”, but I could do with a monthly instalment. This is the only time of year that everyone joins together to enjoy a mutual celebration and who can, honestly, say that they hate every minute of it?
I have fond memories of this time of year from when I was a severely overweight toddler. In a desperate attempt for me to lose weight, I endured months and months of food deprivation and, when it was looking increasingly likely that I would have to eat my sister, Christmas would be upon me and I was, finally, allowed to eat an array of chocolate bars all packed together in one of the chief festive food delights- the selection box! Thankfully, my dieting over the other eleven months of the year has helped my weight problem to subside but my calorific Christmas consumption continues to double the daily limit even now.
As we’re on the subject of food, I must admit that I look forward to eating my Christmas dinner more than any meal of the year- especially if we’re eating at my Gran’s (my Mum is notoriously bad at cooking and buys a microwavable Christmas dinner so she can consume copious amounts of mulled wine and fall asleep on the toilet at 2pm). ‘Tis the season to be jolly and who can without a belly to shake like a bowl full of jelly? even if you are worried about your weight, trust me – as somebody who knows the pains of dieting – this is the ONE time of year that you should indulge in your favourite foods. The rest of the year can be for starvation and, after all, who doesn’t need some extra weight in the winter weather?
Now, I know that everyone is constantly explaining to us that Christmas isn’t just about gifts, but it takes a lot for me to completely forget about them. From the quintessential jumper with a 3D snowmen stitched onto the shoulder to the plethora of shower gel and socks, how can anyone say they don’t enjoy the buzz of Christmas morning? I, certainly, enjoy my parents’ annual attempts at disguising my Cliff Richard calendar and, if the new John Lewis advert is anything to go by, a lot of people love to give gifts as much as they like to receive them (who knew?).
I’m not even bitter that I have continually failed in my 18-year quest for a Mr Frosty Ice-Maker. The anticipation that my life could change and that I will be able to create my own, perfect slush puppies for eternity is one that I relish every Christmas eve. and, as much as I secretly loathe my family’s constant mockery of my failure, I can manage to overlook the disappointment because it’s one of the few times we can all sit and enjoy the day.
This mutuality is, for me, the attribute that epitomises Christmas. It is not just the imminent visit of a fat, bearded man that gets me excited, it’s the decorative delights of the high street and how a vast majority of the county joins together to enjoy the build up to the same event. I am not condoning the high street releasing their Christmas range in July, but I do feel that as soon as I open the first door of my Spongbob Squarepants advent calendar, I am justified in cranking up the Pogues and watching films that I would never watch at any other time of year (with the exception of Mary Poppins and Space Jam).
So, don’t be a scrooge. Enjoy your festive season because at no other time of year can you get fat and watch brilliantly bad television and not feel guilty!
Merry Christmas!
