Seasoned Greetings: Part 2

At last. I heave a deep, heart felt, sigh of relief. It’s over.

At last I can go into a shopping mall without the risk of my eardrums being blasted with yet another round of “Frosty the Red Nosed Reindeer” or “Rudolf the Bloody Snowman”!

No more displays urging me to buy glittery gold deer that look more like weasels with antlers, pseudo-snow covered cottages and ersatz holly and mistletoe.

I am not, ever, dreaming of a white Christmas. If I wanted to live buttock deep in a substance that can only exist at temperatures below 0°C I should move to Canada or Tasmania.

Where I live it is warm and comfortable, something about which I am superbly grateful. The locals here soak up all the ‘White Christmas’ advertising nonsense with only the haziest idea, for most of them, what it actually means.

“Go,” I tell them, “and sit in the freezer for a couple of hours and then come out with a song on your lips.”

Let me just straighten this out a little bit and tuck the edges in.

I have nothing against the spreading of a little joy and happiness. All for it, in fact. I also recognise this is also the season of goodwill to all men wherein we all share the pleasure of giving.

Nothing against any of that. Even though I recognise that it is the ‘season of goodwill to all men’ rather than women. Women will have been firmly entrenched in the kitchen slaving over a hot stove to prepare the Christmas repasts having been up all night wrapping presents. Wrapping anything is not a male forte. Men are completely unable to wrap a perfectly splendid cuboid without it looking like a bunch of socks.

 No, no, I am happy with that.

It is the deluge. The overwhelming presence, if you will excuse the pun, of Christmas. The interminable marketing with which we are subjected day after day after day from everywhere.

It is not just the supermarkets or the malls; it is TV and radio; it is the hoardings and the decorations that spring up everywhere.

It is ubiquitous.

My senses are numb from overexposure to all that is Reindeers and Santa and snow and fir trees. We have small filmlets on ‘YouTube’ precessing around the internet telling us about a ‘Mistletoe Experiment’ and sundry other seasonal merriments.

When I was a lad it was all rather low key. We had a service in Church to remind us of what it was all about. We had a tree with lights and tinsel under which were placed the presents.

It was quiet.

It was peaceful.

It was family.

Now it is noise and fuss. Spend, spend, spend, we are relentlessly urged, or be left behind with those people of no account who, clearly, do not recognise the true spirit of the occasion because they did not open their wallets wide enough.

It is over. Now we get a few months respite until March or April when the advertising companies start their insidious creep towards the next bout of largesse with our money.

They will begin to suggest new things that could be out around November—just in time to buy for next Christmas.

It’s time to cancel it all.

Time to sit quietly around with the children and tell them that joy and happiness is not just for Christmas. The pleasure of giving, of charity, if you like, is just like a puppy—it is for the whole year and beyond and occurs on a daily basis.

People are homeless three hundred and sixty five days a year. Feeding them for one day doesn’t accomplish very much if it achieves anything at all.

Old people suffer from the cold all through the winter; they are, often, lonely, all year around but we don’t notice because we are too intent on what is happening in Afghanistan or Detroit or Zimbabwe or...

Christmas is over. Such a relief.

But the season of joy, happiness and giving goes on.

Doesn’t it?