Surviving Christmas

It’s Monday 21st December and  I’m looking out of the window at the snow on the ground wondering if we’re going to have a white, Romanian Christmas. The sun has nearly set so the coloured lights of the Christmas trees are starting to appear.

Christmas is everywhere – even the desktop icon on my favourite media player has mysteriously grown a Santa hat (I kid you not! It is cute but truly bizarre! Go to the end of the post to see what I mean).

For the last few years I’ve become increasingly ‘anti-Christmas’.

To be more precise, I’ve become increasingly ‘anti-Christmas-commercialisation.’ I wrote last year about the Corporate Take-Over of Christmas so this year my scrooge-like attention is drawn to the personal domain.

15 Carol Singers

The weekend heralded the arrival, en masse, of carol singers, ranging from well trained young theology students with angel voices through to ragged groups of gypsies who seemed to think that blowing random notes on a trumpet was a good way to herald the holiday season.

I didn’t get the impression that any of the approximately 15 visiting groups were interested in anything other than receiving money. I have a very non-peaceful desire to get all zealous and throw cold water over them – but then I know that would ruin it for everyone.

1 Supermarket Trip

Mona and I went to the supermarket early on Saturday morning, just after it opened at 8.00 am, to buy a few supplies. We assumed that at that time of day everyone would still be asleep or digging their cars out the snow and we’d be able to shop in peace.

I really should learn not to make assumptions.

It was packed with people frantically stocking up and you would have got the impression that the end of the world was about to arrive. We were doing the same, so it would be highly hypocritical of me to complain and we spent at least twice as much money as we normally would on a regular excursion for provisions. There’s really no reason for it other than some vague fear that we might starve over the holiday season and not be able to buy anything if we run out.

I don’t normally notice myself respond to a ’scarcity’ view of life – but this was definitely one of those times.

Starvation, thank God, is not part of my reality and I count myself fortunate when I think of all the millions of people who do not have enough to eat.

559 tree decorations

We just decorated our tree and I have to say it’s looking very pretty. I’ve even taken the liberty of putting a photo of it here!

One thing you will notice is that when it comes to decorating the tree, the concept of scarcity is far from our thinking. There are 559 individual decorations collected over many years. It reminds me of my childhood when the tree was a highlight of the year and a focal point for family life and revellry.

I didn’t actually count them – the number 559 is random and simply implies ‘a lot’. It’s a reasonably harmless demonstration of the excess I usually subject myself to at this time of year.

Excess baubles, excess food, excess drink, excess lazy days in front of the TV.

I doubt I can be 100% frugal but would like to curb some of the usual excess.

How to survive Christmas?

‘Survival’ and ‘Christmas’ may seem like strange sentence bedfellows. Either that or it’s a clear sign of my scrooginess coming out again. At this time – a few days before Christmas – I start to get edgy and I do usually worry about how to get through the festivities without exploding.

This year I decided to stop fighting and go with the flow.

I might not actually enjoy the hordes of money-grabbing carolers, supermarket freaks and glittery plastic things hanging from the tree. But that doesn’t mean I should get irate about the secular perversion of this time of year and shut myself away for a week until it blows over.

It is how it how it is and I can choose to enjoy it or fight it. I’m free to enjoy my way, everyone else is free to enjoy it their way.

To those who celebrate Christmas – enjoy your Christmas. To those who celebrate something else – enjoy your something else. To those who don’t celebrate at all – enjoy your non-celebration.

Life’s too short not to enjoy as much of it as possible – even desktop icons that strangely grow Santa hats!

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