“Is it too early to put the decks up?”
The age-old question asked by family and friends around the globe as the nights draw in and Halloween comes to a close. The supermarkets certainly don’t wait, with pumpkins and ghosts barely put back in stock before Christmas floods in via an outpour of Quality Street boxes, advent calendars and being told to ‘spend a magical Christmas with Lidl.’ And who’s to blame them? The capitalists need something to flog to us keen customers, and don’t we need something to look forward to?
These winter months are certainly punctuated with national holidays and celebrations, maybe to distract us from the harsh reality of total darkness by 4pm. Surely Amazon doesn’t have enough SAD lamps for us all. It’s a good job that between Halloween, Diwali, Guy Fawkes Night, Thanksgiving, and even Burns Night into the New Year, we barely go two weeks without having something to toast to.
The cynical amongst us will see a capitalist ploy churning out as much as possible, the longest this goes on for the better for our hungry consumerist society. Who cares if we start celebrations two months early? All those monopolists can hear are the sounds of ‘ka-ching’ as we’re conditioned into truly believing we need that extra gingerbread-scented candle. The take-over of Christmas adverts certainly doesn’t help this either.
The famed John Lewis masterpiece is anticipated each year, with debates flying around about whether this one has finally beaten the 2015 ‘Man on the Moon’ as the best one yet (it hasn’t). And other famous brands have followed suit, the Aldi story of Kevin the Carrot touching many among us. So as festivities grow and grow, is it getting out of hand? We certainly have abandoned all traditional rules, it once deemed bad luck putting up the decorations before Christmas Eve. Now, that proposal would cause the cries of children everywhere, or definitely in the materialist lands of the west.
But is this too harsh a take? Snuggling down to Love Actually with a cup of mulled wine surely isn’t a crime. As my friends and I decorated our homemade Christmas tree singing ‘Fairy-tale of New York’ even though October had barely passed, talking of Secret Santa and anxiously awaiting the opening of the Edinburgh Christmas Markets, the harmlessness of it all really comes to light.
Christmas is more than the intrusive consumerism and aggressive advertising. It’s for watching the city become illuminated with lights and decoration, for home-cooked meals, coming together with friends and family, whatever that may look like.
Why not get started early?
“Edinburgh Christmas Market, 2014” by graham.james.campbell is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Is it ever too early to start getting ready for Christmas?
“Is it too early to put the decks up?”
The age-old question asked by family and friends around the globe as the nights draw in and Halloween comes to a close. The supermarkets certainly don’t wait, with pumpkins and ghosts barely put back in stock before Christmas floods in via an outpour of Quality Street boxes, advent calendars and being told to ‘spend a magical Christmas with Lidl.’ And who’s to blame them? The capitalists need something to flog to us keen customers, and don’t we need something to look forward to?
These winter months are certainly punctuated with national holidays and celebrations, maybe to distract us from the harsh reality of total darkness by 4pm. Surely Amazon doesn’t have enough SAD lamps for us all. It’s a good job that between Halloween, Diwali, Guy Fawkes Night, Thanksgiving, and even Burns Night into the New Year, we barely go two weeks without having something to toast to.
The cynical amongst us will see a capitalist ploy churning out as much as possible, the longest this goes on for the better for our hungry consumerist society. Who cares if we start celebrations two months early? All those monopolists can hear are the sounds of ‘ka-ching’ as we’re conditioned into truly believing we need that extra gingerbread-scented candle. The take-over of Christmas adverts certainly doesn’t help this either.
The famed John Lewis masterpiece is anticipated each year, with debates flying around about whether this one has finally beaten the 2015 ‘Man on the Moon’ as the best one yet (it hasn’t). And other famous brands have followed suit, the Aldi story of Kevin the Carrot touching many among us. So as festivities grow and grow, is it getting out of hand? We certainly have abandoned all traditional rules, it once deemed bad luck putting up the decorations before Christmas Eve. Now, that proposal would cause the cries of children everywhere, or definitely in the materialist lands of the west.
But is this too harsh a take? Snuggling down to Love Actually with a cup of mulled wine surely isn’t a crime. As my friends and I decorated our homemade Christmas tree singing ‘Fairy-tale of New York’ even though October had barely passed, talking of Secret Santa and anxiously awaiting the opening of the Edinburgh Christmas Markets, the harmlessness of it all really comes to light.
Christmas is more than the intrusive consumerism and aggressive advertising. It’s for watching the city become illuminated with lights and decoration, for home-cooked meals, coming together with friends and family, whatever that may look like.
Why not get started early?
“Edinburgh Christmas Market, 2014” by graham.james.campbell is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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