Has Christmas come early?

            Hello, lovelies.

            As I was driving home from work, with the winter night drawing in, I began to see more and more houses with their Christmas decorations up. That can’t be right. We’ve only just had bonfire night. People are still lighting fireworks, and I’m yet to pull my winter coat out of the cupboard as the weather is still so clement. But all around me the windows glistened and gleamed with Christmas trees bedecked with fairy lights. Have we gone mad, following the trend of the supermarkets bringing Christmas earlier and earlier each year? Or has 2020 been so traumatic and traumatising that we are in a desperate need to celebrate anything and everything?

            I used to love Christmas. As a child, Christmas was a time of rehearsals, costumes and my family house full of people all getting ready to perform in the pantomime that my mother had written. Mid December I can remember being bundled into the car, along with as many of the panto props and costumes they could squeeze in. And then there was always that unnamed box that neither my brother nor I were allowed to look into, under pain of certain death. And off we would go, to whatever theatre around the country that we were going to be performing in that year. I have some incredibly happy memories of my childhood Christmas’. All the different Bed and Breakfasts. All the different Christmas decorations. And that mysterious box would magically reveal all the presents from Father Christmas on Christmas day.  But now, I dread Christmas.

            Christmas has become a time of spending huge amounts of money. As soon as we send the children back to school in September, the shops are full of everything Christmas. And the pressure begins. But why? Why do we pile all the pressure on to ourselves to recreate those perfect Christmas’s for our children? The shops hard sell us every new fancy thing that they can. Do we really need that new shiny toy? How many phones are too many? And how can we survive under the combined weight of all that useless plastic? What has happened to the Christmas’ of my childhood? Why is it all about how much we spend over how much time we actually give to our children? And to ourselves. Why is it that this should be the one time of year when we are all meant to come together, but instead we are all struggling to make sure that we can financially, emotionally and realistically buy that one perfect gift for everyone? And what about us? Who is going to be there for us when we are all so busy trying to make everyone else happy?

            But is it just me? Have I lost that Christmas spirit? And what does Christmas mean to us all? Well, taking out the religious element, Christmas is all about people coming together. Making time for each other and for ourselves. It’s that one time of year that we are all thinking about spreading the love to everyone. We wish complete strangers a Merry Christmas. Happy holidays. Happy New Year! And, boy, don’t we all need one of those? We all thought that 2020 was going to be ‘our’ year. No one could have imagined what has actually happened. And maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s why the decorations have started to go up in people’s homes.

            Corona took our summer holidays. It took our Halloween and then it took our bonfire night. And we will not let it take our Christmas. We can safely decorate our homes, spreading the Christmas cheer without spreading the deadly virus. We can light up the dark night’s skies, all the while staying safely at home. We can actually bring a little joy and sparkle to our hard lockdown lives. It’s that one bit of colour and change that we are able to do when meeting up with friends and family is not possible at the moment.

            So, I have made a monumental decision today. I have decided that I don’t want to fill my home with nonsense presents that are sure to be re-gifted next year. The piles of wrapping paper that were used for such a short period of time before filling up my recycle bins. The needless plastic. I want to fill my home with laughter, memories and the smell of homemade mince pies and ginger-bread men. I know that my children will want the latest gadget and shiny thing. But none of those things will be remembered in years to come. But what will be is the memory of me putting the Christmas tree up in the middle of November. Playing all those iconic Christmas songs and Carols. And the memory of me not stressing and worrying that I haven’t bought or done enough. Giving myself the time to actually enjoy Christmas. I also only want to shop local. To go into those smaller family-run shops and see what I could get in there. I want to stay away from the mega-chains that only want to sell plastic tat at ridiculous prices. 

            So, once I have finished this blog, I’m going to go into the loft and dig out my decorations, and we’re going to put them up. My children may think I’m bonkers for doing so, but I know that they will remember it, and that’s all that matters. 



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