Uncommon Sense - truth less ordinary: Merry Xcess-mas!

Ker-ching!

At this time of year I find myself questioning what it’s all about…the festive season known as Christmas that marketeers have turned into stress-mas! I only truly enjoy Christmas when it’s all over and today, being the day after, it’s definitely on the way out.

Sucker for Santa!

Christmas is like a long and uncomfortable labour of shopping and eating and, once Christmas day is over, the rest of the month leading up to New Year is pain relief. Christmas brings with it a sense of expectation and most of those expectations have a price tag. Consumer greed has all but damaged the spirit of Christmas present and future and I long for a bygone era when Christmas had nothing to do with the exchange of gifts. I balk at the idea that we have to give because we get. It’s an obnoxious barter system that makes us feel all the more poorer in pocket and good cheer when we add up the cost of those little purchases.

This is where the magic happened

It was never meant to be like this. Christmas has magic because we remember a birth. A birth without balloons and fanfare. A birth without expensive presents. A birth that was politically incorrect since the baby was genetically modified by a heavenly source. In that sense, the baby’s mother, was a single parent although she had a male support in the form of a chosen father figure. The message that this baby’s birth brought was that of simplicity though the future that lay before him was anything but.

When we put Christmas under the microscope, it’s a mass of complications and clashing priorities. How much do we spend? Whom should we invite over? Why do people give such rubbish presents? Why should we give in to the pressure to buy, buy, buy? The only thing we truly mull over is the wine and mince pies.

Christmas Island treat

I may not fully understand what Christmas is about but I know what its not. I’ll probably have to wait until I’ve had a lot more Christmases to do it poetic justice. Before that what I’m searching for is a place that’s never heard of Christmas….probably impossible. Perhaps on Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean they’re not too big on it. There must be some corner of a foreign field where uncommon Christmas sense reigns and I intend to find it.

If I don’t find my Christmas Shangri-La then my wish is to disappear on the 1^st of December and to re-appear on 2^nd January when the madness is over. Have you noticed how deflated January seems by comparison? In spite of the sales frenzy, I love the semi-normalcy of January.

Boycotting Christmas is not yet an option since I have teenagers who love to get, get, get.

They’re young, they’ll learn that Christmas is more than a snow globe with shiny pieces of tinsel falling all around. If Christmas is anything you want it to be then I live in hope of finding a quiet space within it.