We're now in that bloody awful run up to Christmas and the New Year, short dark days, crap weather and everywhere you go, Christmas and all it's expense is rammed down your throats - and bloody awful Christmas music in many shops! The only good thing in this period is the Shortest Day, when at last, by just seconds in the beginning, then minutes and then hours, each day gets longer and Spring gets nearer.
I've hated Christmas for most of my adult life, partly because it heralds the depths of winter and everything I detest in winter, as I said above, the short dark days, the not being able to get out in the garden and do much, the endurance of suffering cold, wind, rain and sometimes freezing temperatures as I walk across the reserve. Even worse is the big day itself and all the excesses that your are encouraged to take part in because "it's Christmas" - the over eating, the over drinking, the waking up and over eating and over drinking all over again, because "it's Christmas".
One of the greatest joys of living on my own is that if I choose to, I don't have to endure that. I can put out some washing on the line on the big day, it it's a good drying day, I can even have egg and chips for dinner rather than an over-flowing plate of turkey and veg.that I don't feel like eating.
But then of course, comes Boxing Day. After an exhilarating walk on the reserve with the dog, home for a bottle of wine or a rum and coke, probably a tad earlier than normal, and sport on the TV, until that is, the bloody adverts drive you nuts. Adverts every few minutes promoting bloody sales in the shops, whereby people, who only a few days before, had spent a small fortune on Christmas presents, waste their Christmas holidays in retail scrums incurring even more debt buying stuff that they can easily survive with purely because it's cheaper. Unfortunately the later credit card bills don't show the same Christmas spirit, they just increase.
After the brief breathing space, for some of at least, along comes New Years Eve, another festival of excess and noise. In recent years, instead of being able to ignore it, go to bed and wake up in a new year, fireworks have become the norm - every bloody where! I've lost track of the amount of times I've sat up till gone 2.00 in the morning consoling my trembling dogs as every drunken neighbour for miles shoots countless expensive rockets into the night sky.
Roll on January the 2nd when normal life returns.
Like you, we are glad to be out of the fray of over-buying and over-indulging. We have very little exposure to the commercial, or indeed the religious, aspects of Christmas and that is just the way we like it. Even here at the low latitudes we see a marked decrease in day length. I find myself counting the days until the winter solstice. We'll have a special meal or two, but that is about it. Hang in there!
ReplyDeleteWe are kindred spirits Wilma and not ashamed of it x
ReplyDeleteGlad to know I'm not the only one that feels this way:)
ReplyDeleteBeing a Humanist Derek I have not special feelings for Christmas, although I do enjoy my great grandchildrens' enjoyment at the tree and the presents. As I go out I don't do a lot of decorating other than putting the cards out and I do enjoy getting them as with moving a lot I hear from folk I haven't seen for years.
ReplyDeleteA few dark days ahead then Derek, hopefully the weather will be good and you can get out and about. To me Christmas is the Solstice and the looking forward to Spring. But its new Years Eve I dont like because to me it seems we are pressurised into enjoying ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThank you all, I now don't feel as though I'm to much of an exception.
ReplyDeleteIts good know there are other like-minded souls out there like us Derek. What really gets me is when I`m accused of being a miserable old humbug when I`m a half-glass-full-kinda-guy; I don't even mind the winter! I just hate all the waste involved with Christmas, the forced joviality for a fantasy event I don't believe in. There, that's better!! Happy Solstice mate!!
ReplyDeleteLong ago, when people were poor but thrifty, the managed to put a bit by for something extra to eat at Christmas as a change from the bread and dripping the rest of the year. Then it was a time to enjoy as a rest from the hard drudgery of the rest of the year. Relaxation and a full belly before it was on to the next working day.
ReplyDeleteNow in our overfed and under worked consumer society it has no special meaning and I do agree with you, Derek (especially those damned New Year's Eve fireworks and their effect on the dogs).
Its nice to see the great grandchildrens' happiness when they find Santa's stockings at the end of their beds, though.
Hooray to you two, I was expecting a bit of a slating when I published these latest thoughts.
ReplyDeleteYou're quite right of course. Christmas gets worse every year. Here's one example:
ReplyDeleteIn Vienna every year they erect a Christmas tree in the square in front of the town hall. This year, probably due the drought and the climate change, they decided the tree that arrived from the other end of Austria was a bit scruffy having put it up with the assistance of a big crane. Now, it gets interesting. They went into the forest and got some good looking branches and then got some guys to climb up the tree the nail them to the tree trunk to make it 'look nicer' as they called it. But I believe in Germany it's even worse. They have concrete Christmas trees (each weighs a ton) as Christmas market barriers. It's a tragedy we celebrate the birth and thereby the life of a very brave man and we shake and quiver like cowards while at the same time we go to excess which may be our way of disguising our cowardice and fear. I do think so.
I guess a lot depends on whether you believe all this religion stuff in the first place, which I don't. Not believing makes it seem even more stupid at this time of the year.
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