What An Obnoxious Christmas

It's almost Christmas and perhaps this particular disgruntled stating of the obvious is a little late in coming but, Christmas came far too early this year, and last year to be frank, and probably will come much earlier next year. But my particular dissatisfaction comes from the feeling that this commercialisation of the holiday, which starts it's poking and prodding at the stress centre of our brain earlier and earlier every year, is ruining Christmas!

What's magical about Christmas is that it only comes once a year, it's something to look forward to, a point you can foresee when you know you'll be happy because you'll have the day off work, well, most people will, and you'll be surrounded by the people in the world who mean the most to you. Every one makes an extra special effort to be nice to each other and be on their best behaviour, we even buy each other gifts!

Every family has their own family traditions which will fill each heart with pleasure. Some people have massive chaotic family Christmas's where granny and great uncle Phil and your fifteen cousins come to visit. Other families have intimate affairs where you huddle round the telly with your brothers and sisters and watch 'A Wonderful Life' while tucking into hot chocolate. Both Christmas's sound fantastic to me and I love Christmas day! What I don't love is the build up which this year started in August?! I have a friend who went shopping in Braehead Shopping Centre in the Summer and came across a 'Christmas Shop' She took a picture and posted it to her facebook.
The first picture in an album titled 'August' is a picture of a glorious Christmas tree on the back of Santa's Sleigh.

I was still picking last years pine needles out the skirting boards in August!

I work in a shop, a supermarket to be precise, one of the big British chains which sell everything from carrots to party dresses (There's a few shops which fit that description in Britain I'll let you wonder which it is) And in this shop I saw selection boxes being displayed in September.
 
I think for most people, after the realisation comes that there is no Father Christmas to do your gift shopping for you comes the realisation that you kind of have to do it yourself. Which brings immeasurable levels stress, it's like every one's birthday coming in the same month (Which actually does happen to me in January btw) I feel pressured to start buying Christmas presents before I've even sorted out my Halloween costume. Which inevitably turns out rubbish because I'm so distracted and my brain just won't shut up about Christmas.

Christmas spirit, in it's base nature is only designed to last two weeks, three at most. And yet we're being forced into it early by retailers and advertisers so that by the time December 25th actually comes around we've had enough of Christmas trees and tinsel and Christmas Songs and Santa and gifts! It's not even December yet and already I'm sick of Christmas.

Christmas has been made obnoxious! And I don't think Christmas would like that.

Christmas is about celebrating the birth of our saviour, the principle date in the Christian calender.
To most individual's it's about breaking bread with your family. Taking time out of your life to let the people that matter know that they matter and making the people that are special to you feel special. It's something that is sacred to everyone who celebrates it, and hold a warm place in our hearts. The cold, sterile, greedy, money driven retail and advertising industries have no place in that and I call on everyone who feels the same to join me in rejecting these forces from your celebrations next year when they begin to rear their ugly heads... as you're on your way to your summer holidays.

A Blog a Day

...And why I'm here.

I feel that I need to improve my writing. I used to be quite good and would blog quite often on different platforms but lately I've become a little rusty. So I'm going to do what ladies of old would have done when finding themselves in such a position and I'm going to keep a diary (or a blog as we call it here in the 21st century) and hope that it helps me in my little problem.

I'll be writing about all sorts of things that happen to take my fancy or interest on any given day and I only hope that I'm able to keep it going.

Hope whoever reads, enjoys.