What Has Become of Christmas

When I was a child money was, generally speaking, rather tight for very many. In a country that was just achieving the usual symbols of Western prosperity, Christmas was still lived mainly as a religious festivity. True, the children were excited at the prospects of long-awaited toys, and Christmas gifts tended to be “big things; “but there was a smart system of “recycling”, by which what was planned anyway was actually given as a Christmas gift. Millions of bicycles have certainly been sold that way, and it’s not that without Christmas there would have been no bicycle…

Later, the situation began to become more serious. The Country was becoming more prosperous, actually seriously prosperous, and the habit of making expensive gifts to one’s entire circle of acquaintances – unthinkable just one or two generations before, with much more pressing worries dominating everyone’s lives – also started to get a sure grip on the, I must say, less smart part of the population; the ones, that is, who thinks that they must keep pace with the other not so smart, but often better off, acquaintances. And so the circus got started.

I still remember the casually heard chat on the Roman underground, with the old-ish lady sitting in front of me – a working-class type, about sixty – complaining with her friend about how much she had spent that year in Christmas gifts. Mind, this was not the fake complaint people voice to show how much they can afford: the lady was worried.  The amount was around an average net wage, and I never forgot the episode.

Later still, a new phenomenon began to pave its way in the public consciousness: Christmas stress. Now, I do understand that for some people stress is a status symbol, like complaining about the large maintenance bills of a large car, but this is different. We are so accustomed to the phenomenon of people starting to worry mid-November for all the things they have to do, we have forgotten that actually it is supposed to be… Christmas!

I am not one of those condemning the “consumerism” of the event in itself. If it’s important, of course there will be money spent. But the idea of having one’s life eaten by stress- and present-related worries is really too stupid to contemplate.

The last trend – one I have only noticed in the Anglo-Saxon countries – is the attempt to take Christmas away from Christmas. The atheist troops and the politically correct brain damages insist in having all the mess  associated with Christmas – like the impossible traffic: try London on an Advent Saturday – without, well, Christ.  “Season’s greetings”, says the stupid card you receive in the office, and you would like to ask what “season”  are they referring to, or whether Winter is so worth celebrating. “Winter lights” is the way some particularly stupid English councils call their Christmas fairy….. Everything is made so as – officially – not to offend our Muslim brothers and sisters – well they aren’t my brethren then; a family implies shared values – but is in reality an attempt to eradicate Christianity from the Western civilisation.

This last trend is getting worse. Last year, Tiffany & Co. made what I consider one of the most beautiful Christmas ads ever – don’t look if you are envious of the beautiful and wealthy, though; it will cause you serious liver damage …..  -. This advertisement was in the cinemas during Advent and it was all about Christmas, the warmth of the family, the beauty of pure feelings, the warmth of traditional values, and all that…. Which is, by the way, the same that happen sin Italy, where Christmas doesn’t have to be explained, and the beauty and warmth of family values is everywhere (the Asti Cinzano ads have been running, with the same Edwin Hawkins music and variations of the same theme, for many decades now…)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuQXN-VfbDo

Now it is Advent again, and Tiffany & Co. has a new adv. Laetitia Casta stars, and the atmosphere is rather romantic, but limited to only two people. What is not there is…. every mention of Christmas, or of all the other things mentioned above. Please!

The same tragic phenomenon I have noticed regarding the former icon of Christmas ads: Coca Cola. They now have an evocative setting, the snow and this and that, but no Father Christmas I am afraid, nor any mention of Christmas whatever.

One can understand that at Tiffany & Co. there may be around more idiots than it is good for them, but around one billion people must associate father Christmas with Coca-Cola! How can they be so criminally stupid as to damage Christian feelings and their own purse at the same time!?

End of rant, I think.

Have yourselves a merry little Christmas..

Mundabor