It's very 'cool' to hate Christmas. When a jingly old Christmas classic comes on the radio it's expected of the occupants of that room to go 'Eurgh' and giggle misanthropically at their fellow man. To mumble into your drink and offer a dismissive hand gesture at anyone who dares mention the word earlier than mid-December. It's a C word that offends more easily than THE C word (cunt).
With that in mind I, as a 27-year-old man with alternative interests and a hatred for processed pop music and capitalist John Lewis heartstring pornography, should be the very vanguard of the anti-festive brigade. Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, you assuming nincompoop, but I love Christmas.
When I hear Slade's old hit for the first time, I smile. When I'm treated to that first whiff of delicious mulled wine I feel warmer inside than the cauldron it's served from. I've liked Christmas ever since it was nothing more to me than a morning of free toys, and as its merit to me has morphed as I've grown up, my fondness for it doesn't seem to be going anywhere.
It's not my fault, my love for this time of year is out of my control. If you want to blame someone for this gleeful affront to your yearly grumble, blame my relatives. Blame my friends. Hell, even blame my ex-girlfriends if you want. These are the people who, throughout my life, have always made my Christmases happy, exciting and memorable. They've been conditioning me since birth towards Pavlovian salivation responsive to the first beats of 'Last Christmas'.
Christmas to me is a gathering of relatives I don't often see (and I actually like mine), good music, games, drinking and feasting. And Doctor Who is always on. Any day that's on is Christmas to me. Prior to that it's me and my friends, prancing about like idiots in my flat to silly songs in the shade of my glowing Christmas tree, festive-events and the sudden influx of good, Christmas ales. I've yet to have a bad Christmas, but after almost thirty good ones I doubt a sour one-off will make much of a dent in my support for it.
I've been consistently lucky. Millions haven't. Many have lost someone precious to them at Christmas time. Many are abused, neglected or subject to some continued, dreaded form of all-the-year-round torment during the festive season and, however their fortunes have fared, they have a justified disdain for the time of year. Human evil doesn't take a break when Santa's workshop opens.
On the lighter end of the spectrum, others dislike Christmas because their families have never really bothered with it and so they're baffled at the onslaught of celebration. Sure, they can have that. And no, I'm not about to careen into a Geldoffian rant about how we should shove Christmas down the throats of entire cultures who have never historically acknowledged it. By all means grumble at Him, I'll join you there.
But anyhow, I fall into neither of those categories. I am humbled to have been left in this section of society, and I recognise the struggles of others, I am not ignorant, I am simply thankful. And Christmas brings this out in me more than any other time of the year.
"Oh but you aren't religious Joe! What are you doing celebrating Christmas?" I hear you ask (keep it down, I'm writing). No, I'm not. But I won't let a lack of piety stop me from enjoying a festival of light and heat, invented by pagans in order to banish darkness and cold, under a tree introduced to my culture by a German prince in the nineteenth century, and unfortunately obtained by a God-fearing cult with an agenda to promote their fantasy starring a magic baby who was born in September. I'll leave the light and warmth in, and the religion can go out in the cold (ask me what I'm doing for Easter).
Who else was unashamed to love Christmas? Him. Charlie boy. My hero. Charles Dickens, who popularised the salutation "Merry Christmas" in the very same year Prince Albert brought Christmas trees to Britain. If it's good enough for Charlie, it's good enough for me. And I will most certainly be reading A Christmas Carol for the ninth time this year, and enjoying Kermit's rendition of it for the forty-ninth. And while, yes, Dickens does sign off with a desire to be blessed by God, it is Dickens I am blessed by, every year (I even got a job in his house this year, so he's technically my boss now too).
Finally, you'll tell me I'm in support of a festival of capitalism. Well save your breath. That's not what Christmas is to me, and I don't indulge. I won't be eagerly awaiting the horrific Coke advert (why people are excited to see a convoy of corporate gas-guzzlers lay waste to an idyllic country village is beyond me, they moan about it at other times of the year), I won't be setting foot into a John Lewis or a Debenhams (the queues for that are huge anyway) and I certainly won't be enjoying any butchered turkey flesh either. If this is what Christmas is to you, I get why you hate it. But stay out of my way, I'm putting 'Fairytale of New York' on.
Merry Christmas!
No comments:
Post a Comment