and me – clamouring to be seen to be “Christmassy”.
So why do I reject “the season of goodwill” and remain staunchly anti-Christmas? Settle down with a glass of warm cider and a mince pie and I’ll tell you.
First of all, and most importantly, I am not a Christian. I don’t celebrate Eid or Hannukah or Diwali or Yule so why should celebrating the supposed birth of the figurehead of a Middle-Eastern death cult be any more significant to me? I was baptised into a branch of Christianity (being the Church of Scotland, a nippy wee no-fun sect if ever there was one) but rejected that long ago. I am an Atheist – I have no gods or religion. I don’t accept that I live in a Christian country either – I live in a country which if the present government and peppered with attitudes like those held by that bloody woman on the Tramlink or by our printed media are anything to go by most decidedly is not Christian. I don’t believe that a person called Jesus lived in what is now Palestine and Israel over 2000 years ago and even if he did, he would be utterly appalled that people who claim to follow him not only war in his name but have rejected what are the fundamentals of his alleged teachings which as I see are to be good to each other and to love people, to help others and to live a simple life without trying to be monetarily rich especially at the expense and exploitation of others.
On the subject of money, this is the second reason I reject Xmas. In this recession, where many of us are feeling the pinch to some degree and some, including myself are unemployed and trying to live week by week on less and less money, should we feel we have to make a big splurge at a time when we should be saving for or spending on more important things? Will people think less of us if we aren’t seen to be rushing around buying gifts? Should we get further into debt just to save face? Will our families love us any less if they wake up on the morning of December 25th to nothing? Admittedly, having a daughter, when we have had the money I have enjoyed treating her and seeing her wee face when she was younger when she discovered presents beneath the lights of our Xmas tree. But she is now an older teenager and she understands that I am not well enough to work and that her dad’s handyman business is floundering. So we have decided that as a family, we won’t buy any gifts for each other and instead will have a nice wee break with some yummy food, some fine ales and some entertaining movies. I have told my out-laws that they will be getting maybe a tin of chocolates from us for about £5 worth instead of the £40 we used to spend on both of them. My niece may get a voucher but that’s it. I have never really held with the idea of spending what to me seem crazy amounts of money – upwards of £200 per child in some families! – on things that we neither need, want and that will be soon forgotten. I remember a particularly joyless Xmas when, for some reason best known to her, my mother persuaded my father that it was time for us kids to learn a lesson. So she and he deliberately forgot to buy a present with us kids for each other from us and, on Xmas morning, after we three had all opened our presents, she asked “So where’s mine?” My brothers and I were aghast and on realising that we hadn’t been reminded, in floods of tears we tried to press gifts we had been given onto her. My dad was embarrassed and tried to console us but my mother was adamant that this was a lesson we needed to learn and it marred the rest of the day. I’d like to point out that we weren’t teenagers or older kids – I was 9 and my brothers 6 and 2!
Also, ask yourself, what did your significant other, your parents or your kids get for you last Xmas? What we remember is not what we received but what we did. I recall as a child going to the Kelvin Hall in Glasgow before it was an indoor sports arena, going on the carnival rides (not those huge rollercoasters they have now but simple carousels and dodgems), the one time we went to the circus and saw the elephants who on previous visits I had only smelled (anyone who went when I did must now be smelling hay, straw and elephant dung!) and seen through glass and going home with a really dodgy looking black African mask-looking balloon filled with helium, a rarity in our day. I remember going to Ingliston Market and the smell of burger and onions, going to see my first and only pantomime that had Stanley Baxter and Angus Leckie as the Ugly Sisters and watching “Morecambe and Wise”
and Xmas “Top Of The Pops” and lots of films. Apart from a few things, like a huge toy dog, tiny Pippa dolls and a creepy doll in jodhpurs with a horse the year I wanted a Bionic Woman, I can’t remember much of what anyone bought for me. Plus it’s my daughter’s birthday exactly 2 weeks after, which I have always thought was a shame for her but is way more significant and worthy of celebration in my mind. I hate being in town from November on as well, with shops blaring out fucking John Lennon and Mariah bloody Carey as people dash about in a frenzy looking for that perfect present for a loved one and settling instead for Homer Simpson underpants. Again.
Now, don’t get me wrong – I’ll be putting up lights and a plastic Xmas tree this Sunday (always the first Sunday in December or the last in November if it’s late on) – as an ex-Druid I still like the significance of the bright lights in the darkest days of winter leading up to the shortest day and the Solstice. I just won’t be buying any cards though and I hate tinsel.
We won’t be having Xmas dinner either – for one I have never seen the point of eating a huge meal at 3pm (after the Queen – as if an ardent anti-royalist like me would have that auld parasitical bitch on – plus we as I’ve said before we don’t have TV now) and secondly we’re all vegetarian in our house and my 2 are no fans of nut roast so there’s no point in substituting that for chicken and stuffing (when I was wee, turkey for Christmas was unheard of). I was in Wholefoods Market, who have opened their first branch outside of London in Giffnock, a rather posh part of Glasgow and I nearly fainted when I saw the price of a Tofurkey - £29.99
! More like Tofuckoffurkey - even to me that looks disgusting! We don’t have friends or family over because I don’t see the point of getting up early and running about like a nutter trying to be the hostess with the mostess when I’d rather be sat on my arse, drink in one hand and chocolate in the other. This year we’ll be having a Broccoli and Stilton pie. At dinner time. If I can be bothered making one. One year I was so fucked off with it all, we had macaroni cheese and chips – and we bloody enjoyed it! I have never understood why we can’t have mince pies and Dan Cake rum truffles all year round – why keep it til now?
Don’t even mention office Xmas lunches or parties and “Secret Santas” – the best thing about not working is not having to have another buffet lunch where there is fuck all for vegetarians as usual and yet another scarf and gloves set. The best ever Secret Santa present I ever saw was when I worked in a veggie café co-op and one woman grabbed the biggest present from our “Lucky Dip” only to find it was a string of big onions and a copy of the Beano!
I will be watching “The Muppets Christmas Carol” – I have “One More Sleep Til Christmas” on my iPod – and “Elf” because they are good films and we like them. I’ll be listening to “Fairytale Of New York” by Kirsty MacColl (bless her – she died too young and around this time too, as did the wonderful Joe Strummer)
and the Pogues because it’s Gee and mine’s song (for the line “This years’ for me and you” and not “you’re an old slut on junk” as you might think). But there are so many absolutely shitey movies and songs associated with Xmas – I shouldn’t need to give examples – suffice to say “Do They Know It’s Christmas”, “Mistletoe and Wine” and “Driving Home For Christmas” along with bloody Macauley Culkin’s face have been known to trigger apoplexy in me. And as for Shakin’ fecking Stevens…in that jumper….haud me back!
Suffice to say, the meaning of Xmas, if there ever was one, for me has been lost among adverts, garish decorations and some cunt off the X-factor being rigged as Number 1 in a chart nobody cares about. Folks get stressed out and up to their tits in more debt for what – one day? No thanks.
I will end this rant by wishing you all peace and joy, which, when you get down to it, is all any of us really want and need, now and at anytime of the year xxx
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