Stuff and Nonsense

Well, it feels like it anyway. There was a certain nip in the air tonight. A Yuletide chill you might call it. A definite yet undefinable feeling that Christmas is upon us. On my way into the DIY store the scene was as boring and depressing as any other night when leaving the office promptly at 5. An endless stream of cars stretched back from the red light, blocking the entrance to the store car park, blocking others turning right, churning out billowing clouds of noxious fumes from recently started engines. Altogether more than a little grim.

On exit from the store though, what a difference! The endless stream of lights, white, yellow, red, amber, the occasional green, some blue from those daft windscreen neon affairs, all of them were now as fairy lights; twinkling not in the sluggish monotony of the winter commute but in brightly buzzing anticipation of the imminent arrival of a fat jolly bloke in a red suit. Of course anthropomorphising car lights is a sure sign that it was my mood that altered rather than the light’s but briefly, that’s what crossed my mind, and now it’s out there for the psychoanalysts among you to make of it what you will.  There I go again making the assumption that more than one other person actually reads this stuff.

I can only imagine that briefly I was whisked backed to the happier Christmases of childhood. I don’t mean that my Christmases as an adult are bad, or have been. On the contrary, since my good fortune in marriage and parenthood, Christmas has taken on slighter brighter hue with each passing year. I simply mean that not all the childhood Christmases filled me with joyful optimism. That’s a different and lengthier post altogether though.

I am, I’m sorry to say and for no reason that I can articulate though probably related to the comments above, a bit of a miserable sod when it comes to Christmas. The whole affair just gets me a little bit down. I’m happy Dad of course with the kids; “It’s for the kids really isn’t it?” as they say and there is much fun to be had watching and helping them enjoy it but frankly no more fun for me than is to be had doing any jigsaw, playing any word game, drawing any picture with the kids throughout the year. I’m very fortunate to work near to home and to work flexible hours (at least flexible attendance at the office. The actual hours worked are still too much by many people’s standards but early mornings and adult evenings are forgone in preference to being home at a time when the Kids are awake) so I get to be an active and participatory dad. Perhaps this is why I don’t value the holidays as much as one might. I get to spend time with the children 7 nights a week and weekends with very few exceptions throughout the year. Were I unable to do that I suppose I might hold the Christmas break to be a little more precious than is my wont.

As it is, there will be repeats on telly, the weather will be foul, it won’t snow, I’ll eat too much, put on a stone in weight in 2 weeks that will take me all year to lose if I lose it all, friends and family will turn up or send such copious amounts of chocolate and biscuits that we won’t make a dent in them until Easter when it will pile up again. And of course the house will be consumed by an avalanche of presents from near and far. It’s all very very silly.

On the matter of presents, I should like to offer this thought, the razor sharp logic of which, I claim for myself (if it’s someone elses I can’t remember when I heard it. If you know different, speak up).

I have all I need. What I do not need but really want I can buy myself. If I can’t buy it because I can’t afford it then you can’t afford it either or, if you can afford it, you don’t feel the need to buy me presents anyway. The logical implication of these facts should be obvious. Any present you buy for me can only possibly be something I don’t need or something I don’t want. Thanks for the thought but save your money. Pay it off your mortgage (every pound counts) or another debt or give it to ChildLine or Children In Need or some other good cause close to your heart. Buy yourself a premium bond, you might win big and give a bit more to your chosen charity. There are an infinite amount of better things you can do with every “present pound” than spend it on wrapping paper destined for the recycling along with whatever you were thinking of putting in it.

Oh, and please don’t tell me that my misery is the result of the heathen-fuelled greedy, coveting, materialistic existence of the developed world and that Christmas is really about religion. No. Religion just spoils the “party”. It used to be about religion when the human race was young and stupid. It used to be about religion when early Christians adopted a pagan festival so they might more easily convert the feeble minded masses from one delusion to another but these days it’s just something to mark the end of the year at its most miserable zenith (in the northern hemisphere at least).