If I could change it,
my Christmas would focus on the good things -
“Peace on earth and goodwill to all men” (and women of
course)
It’s a time when we suspend our normal lives for a few days.
We suspend the strife and stress of everyday life, we try to see the good in
people we have little in common with – especially family members.
It’s a winter festival – so we celebrate the joys of winter
– good food and drink, real fires, clear frosty nights, the muted colours and
clarity of the landscape in winter.
It’s a time for parties, feasts, warmth, love and friendship
We would sing together and laugh together.
But the rest would have
to go:
It would have nothing
to do with the birth of Christ. Nobody knows when Christ was born but the
least likely date is mid December. I’d
still call it Christmas though because to change the name would offend lots of
people I like and respect.
It would not be Pagan
either – we don’t need any religious or pseudo-religious excuse to
celebrate the turning of the year.
There would be no
Christmas shopping. We would give gifts to those we love but not things we had
bought. If I couldn’t make or write or
picture something for them I would give them something I already owned. People
would stop spending ridiculous amounts of money giving people STUFF they don’t
need.
We would refuse to
adopt American ideas of Christmas like SANTA CLAUS, and those horrible
Christmas songs like “White Christmas”.
We would do away with
all the “Dickensian” rubbish and return to an older more austere form of
celebration. Dickens would go back on the Eng Lit bookshelf where he belongs,
and all the mawkish Victorian carols would be banned.
We would stop sending
Christmas cards to people we scarcely know and wouldn’t recognise in the
street. We would write personal messages
to people we like and admire who otherwise we might lose touch with.
We would get rid of
everything fake - fake snow, plastic
santas, fake conifers, fake log fires, fake goodwill, false sentiment
People would be fined
for wasting electricity on gaudy lighting displays
Bah Humbug!
Scrooge was right about the humbug but recognised in the end that the real
message of Christmas was a good one. So
why not get rid of the humbug and keep the good stuff?
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