Seasoned Greetings

It is now, as I sit here and gaze out of my window at the jungle, four o’clock on the afternoon of the 24^th December.

Roughly translated that means that, for two thirds of the World, it is now Christmas Eve.

For Christians it is a wonderful time of year celebrating, as they do, the birth of the object of their adoration. ‘Object’ here meaning the ‘point’ or ‘focus’ rather than some inanimate projection.

It is, essentially, a Christian festival. It has nothing to do with anyone else. Nothing.

Yet celebrants and non-celebrants alike will have a holiday. We will enjoy that. Thank you. Of course, in some parts Christians also enjoy the holidays bestowed upon other folk so it is, one supposes, ‘swings and roundabouts’.

Some non-Christians and those that I like to think of as ‘pseudo-Christians’ will use it as an excuse to party. To have a shindig, over-eat, get drunk and, even, indulge in some naughtiness.

The shame of it, for me, is this desire to overspend. Especially on toys, food and drink.

There are those who go into debt for the next twelve months just to give their children, and themselves, a great one day in the year.

We, in our little world, do not gamble. Because it is an unnecessary expenditure. A pastime from which you will, very rarely, end up financially rewarded. The bookies will win.

It is, or can be, an addiction. Who suffers? You do. The family does—the children do.

The funds that would have fed and clothed the children are now safely stored in the pockets of the bookies.

Drink is another one. We see, all too often, people speaking in praise of how they spend money to become ill and then go out and do it again night after night.

I have seen a woman leave a supermarket with a trolley full of booze. Full. Beside her was a small girl dressed in a thin cotton dress, a worn out woollen cardigan that was out at the elbows and sandals. The snow was horizontal.

The small girl stood there while Mummy loaded the boot of their new car with the festive cheer. No thought to letting the little one into the car first.

Some priorities are mind-boggling.

So much for Christmas cheer.

Are we so brainwashed by the corporations that brew or distil alcohol, that advertise all those lovely treats for the festive season that we cannot see how our children are suffering?

Maybe we are. Brainwashed.

This may be one of those rare times of year when the Churches will be less than empty.

The service of nine lessons and nine carols will slip by largely un-noticed. The lessons, especially, will pass by without any part of it impinging themselves on memory—or conscience.

In all the seasonal cheer there is a kind of amnesia, a quality of forgetfulness that precludes the celebrants from remembering, “The children are important. More important than you are.”

It is, for me, the season of waste, of gluttony of profligate expenditure on useless items.

Small children will get a wonderful toy and reject it in order to play with the box. Young eyes will look in wonder at the tree so full of light and beauty and wonder why their Mum and Dad are arguing.

They will wonder what it is all about, this time of goodwill and harmony.

Then it will be back to normal. Back to scraping pennies together for the rent and the electric bill.

Am I a killjoy?

No. I am hoping that, one day, there will be a semblance of order. Perhaps there will come a time of sanity.

A dream.

Bah. Humbug.