To minimize the emotional damage, my method is to get in, round, and out, as quickly as possible. That’s why I learn the whereabouts of all the things I may want to buy, and which parts of the place I can avoid completely.
Around this time of year my Supermarket-Tactical-Survival-Plan is thrown into total disarray. The shelves have been re-arranged and many of my regular purchases have disappeared to make way for the plethora of brightly coloured and cheaply made TAT that is the Christmas marketing bonanza.
I don’t do Christmas. To put it more accurately, I don’t get involved in that commercial and cultural abomination known as ‘Xmas’. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got absolutely no quarrel with those who wish to celebrate the religious festival which observes the birth of Jesus Christ. From what I can tell, he was a pretty cool dude who had some very good things to say. But ‘Xmas’! Really, what is this all about?
‘Xmas’ is an
exercise in mass cultural and commercial arm-twisting to get us to buy stuff we would never normally buy, or at the very least, only buy occasionally, when we absolutely need it. Just watch the telly. At this time of year the advertising turns to perfumes, electric shavers and toothbrushes and all sorts of other silly kit that make up the bulk of the stuff that we buy to give to others.‘Xmas’ is a time when everything must be ‘perfect’. Every year the news is filled with tragic stories of how some peoples’ ‘Xmas’ dream has be ruined by some company going out of business or some tragedy happening at this ‘time of year’. It is built up into an impossible web of commercial greed and sentimental expectation that, in the end, can only leave us let down and emotionally and financially exhausted.
Consider this:
At ‘Xmas’ the divorce rate and the suicide rate both soar. Many people go into debt to fund this extravaganza, and haven’t yet paid off the left-over debt from the year before. ‘Xmas’ is the busiest time of year for loan-sharks, and we know the misery and intimidation that comes from dealing with those characters.
In the Knight household, we observe the feast and enjoy Christmas Day. We do not exchange gifts, send cards or cover the place with tinsel. We really enjoy our Christmases. Rather than splash out on tat we can’t really afford, in order to let our loved ones know we care. We take great pains to observe their Birthdays instead.
It’s a little ironic that ‘Xmas’ is supposed to celebrate the birth of the guy who threw the money-lenders out of Solomon’s Temple. One suspects that Jesus would be pretty appalled to see the commercial mess we have made of his birthday celebrations.
The retail trade has come to rely very heavily on ‘Xmas’. For many in that trade, it represents over 80% of their annual turnover. One wonders how they would fare, if this annual distortion of the market didn’t happen. I suspect that we consumers would spread the same amount of spending throughout the year, buying stuff we actually want or need. The result would be a much smoother trading cycle for the retailers, and lower overheads, as they wouldn’t need the expanded and distorted warehousing and distribution facilities that are needed to deal with the annual ‘Xmas’ bulge.
I’m reminded of the joke told to me by a Jewish friend whose father was in the trade supplying wholesale Tat to retailers. Every boxing day his dad would go to the warehouse, look at the empty shelves and say:
“Thank you Jesus”.
Christmas? Right-on! Happy birthday Jesus!
‘Xmas’?
BAH HUMBUG!!
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