I’m very glad to note this year that the usual marketing hyperbole, which is sometimes known as Christmas, has been much less noticeable this year. Or perhaps I’ve just been more efficient at avoiding it, having done most of my shopping online and avoiding the meat market that is the mall. Definitely the way to go. High Street retailers please take note. Christmas sales are NOT down, it’s just savvy bastards like me, as well as much of the male population who don’t get a kick of being slalomed by marauding buggies and mullered by shopping bags full of other people’s tut, are having their presents delivered. I am tired of hearing the same sensationalist "woe are we - the economy is crashing because sales are X percent down compared to last year" rubbish touted by the Chartered Society of British Shopkeepers or whatever the association representing the needs of he the robber-barons in our high streets offensive to my intelligence. Come February, we’ll all be lectured by the government and the Bank of England on just how irresponsible we’ve been, that British debt is spiralling out of control and blah blah bloody blah.
I usually get a case of the Christmas blues about the end of the October, which lasts up until the dreaded day itself. But this year, mainly due to us making a decision to keep present buying to manageable proportions, the stress levels I usually suffer are down considerably.
Christmas is for kids. If you have, them, I’m sure you’ll have a great time. I know I did until the age of about 14. But I’m not a kid, my brat is nearly 18, and we’re not having any more for the foreseeable. So what does the leviathan of High Street commercialism intend for us? Bloody nowt, that’s what.
If Christmas was the church’s answer to the pagan Winter Solstice celebration, but has now become a celebration of how much debt you can accumulate in the shortest space of time, let me define the Daggerdukc fantasy Christmas:
It would start with a long lie in bed with Lynn. Understrappers would supply an endless supply of hot (preferably alcoholic) drinks, chocolate, rich, decadent food, and later on, a turkey curry, Christmas dinner in its traditional form being just too plain bloody boring for my tastes. There would be a plentiful supply of our choice of DVDs, music and comedy. Ideally, this would take place in front of an open fire, but the heating would be on full blast in our house. Later we would hoist our over-full bodies out of doors and visit friends doing likewise. A limo would be there to take us to whichever friends we considered most worthy (OK, so this isn’t going to happen, but public transport would at least be plentiful and free for the day) . Oh yeah, and no carols or Slade records.
Hey, I’ve just noticed – I’ve not heard any ‘festive’ music on the radio at all this year. I know my radio stations of choice are BBC London and 6Music, both catering, I like to think (or kid myself), for the urbane, somewhat cynical listener. But even the high street seems bereft of the usual Xmas crap this year
Suits me fine. Ebenezer had it right all alone.
Bologs to Christmas and bah humbug to the lot of ya.
Unless you do have kids, in which case I hope they have/had a grand old time doing things involving snow, sledges and whining that the bike/iPod/hypodermic needle you bought them was the wrong colour and not as good as Stacey’s/Raj’s anyway.
Moozik and moods - see next entry as I'm on a roll today.
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