 Readers
during Christmas time may well stop and reflect on what this great
event means to us? By now, most homes will be decorated with
Christmas trees, coloured lights and paper or plastic decorations
around the rooms (less than last year since surcharge bites). These
days, more people decorate their front garden trees or house walls
with coloured electric lights and prop up plastic effigies of Father
Christmas assaulting their balconies. Shops in our towns and
villages fill up with new merchandise and colour magazines (stock up
on weekend press for double-issue of glamour magazine) bombard our
imagination to spend beyond our means. The mythical shopper wearing
the diamond studded Rolex is the rich uncle from New York who will
cash-in our shopping madness until we die of exhaustion. Yes,
Christmas is too commercialised.
Why are we festooned with adverts selling diamonds, cars, designer
gear and showing celebrities wearing furs and fine watches, each
costing a thousand time our annual bonus?
But banks do come to our rescue, giving us discounted charges for
lending us new platinum plastic cards.
The extraordinary cavalier way banks are fanning the fire of
consumer credit amid hubristic over-optimism gives questionable
relief to our cash-strapped citizens. But who cares....”domani”
(tomorrow) never comes!
It is like a never-ending jam jar. Materialism is progressively
taking over the religious feeling and our desire to acquire and
consume is made more accessible through free credit extended on our
plastic cards.
Burning plastic cards on shopping sprees in London, Paris or Rome is
rapidly taking the role as a status symbol amongst well-heeled
couples. This is apart from lavish skiing holidays sipping Napoleon
brandy amongst the jet set.
For the working classes, this is of course rendered worse if you are
flat broke as you burnt your month’s salary in “Super five” jackpot
tickets.
 For
the average shopper the madness just adds to pre-Christmas stress as
the turnstiles to achieve luxury status shut us out. To add to the
circus, political gurus battle for their share of the gravy train
asking party faithful for donations to fill their election war
chest.
All this ten days ahead of the annual humanitarian “Strina “
jamboree.
While demands for expensive children toys like electronic games and
the “Ultimate Bumblebee” robots fill our adverts there is little
room for olde sentiment such as reading A Christmas Carol. It’s all
a consumer frenzy as publishing agencies ring up clients to cough up
for their Lm500 a page advert in high definition colour. Budget
overtones subconsciously remind us that this is the time of plenty
but children’s allowances and year-end pension increases are still
days ahead.
Yet relish the thought that Santa has bestowed us a memorable gift
for adults. This comes wrapped-up in a tinsel studded CD box
featuring the live performance of the legendary band Led Zepplin.
They teamed up once more and have made a sassy comeback since their
“Stairways to Heaven” icon in 1972.
Yes she is buying a stairways to heaven and like most of our youth
she is living in a dream-world of never-ending mirages. Thank God,
older folks prefer to believe in an idealised vision of Christmas
yet traditions are changing fast.
The feeling is different from the sacred images of the strict
religious feast showing the baby Jesus born in poverty. Even the
memory of our colonial past when the British bequeathed their
Victorian values on Yuletide are swiftly fading away.
Regrettably the traditional Christmas card is fast receding in
popularity and is being replaced by impersonal 4page 13
electronic cards flooding the internet. Conventionally, Christmas
cards showed religious pictures – Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, or
other parts of the Christmas story. All this has now changed as
fewer religious themes are in use. Today’s cards are often jokes,
winter pictures, Father Christmas, or romantic scenes of life in
past times.
Charles Dickens tale of a Christmas Carol where images of ‘saghtar’,
churchgoing, turkey, paper crackers and mince pies is morphing into
champagne and caviar breakfasts, wearing designer clothes, fine
watches, savvy jewellery, with party poops doning ‘crocodile skin ‘
stiletto shoes.
 Revellers
drive fast cars to superlative five-star venues where dinners are at
Lm100 (€232) each. Concurrently end-of year office parties rave on
till the early morning hours. Affluence has also reflected in higher
value gifts exchanged on Boxing Day. Even for the working classes,
gone is the tradition of hanging children’s gifts in socks to be
opened after the Christmas Mass vigil. This year this has taken a
new dimension ever since low cost airlines opened the floodgates for
enlightened travellers. Gudja airport is packed with shoppers
returning home with oversized bags complaining after paying for the
overweight penalties at the check-in desks.
Yet this is not what Christmas ought to be. Indisputably it is very
stressful. Mythical Christmas turns out in the end to be just that –
a myth. The ritual of gift – giving is epitomised by the L-iStrina
mega TV show. Last year it collected a cool million for charity
while donors try their luck to bet on fabulous prizes. As can be
expected, politicians & TV personalities flock in to capitalise on
its popularity. Yet nobody complains since generosity at this time
of the year is legendary.
We all want to give part of our perceived wealth so that others less
fortunate may cherish during the festive season. It seems to be part
of our Christian roots that propels us to be generous.
In this mad-rush to work, play hard and consume in even larger doses
little do we stop to think why we are so hedonistic in our habits.
Perhaps the answer lies in ancient history and our roots.
During the pagan times of the Romans in 336 the Church set the date
to December 25 in an attempt to eclipse a holiday then known as
Saturnalia. It marks the winter solstice. It is the time when the
sun after having been at the lowest point in the heavens, beings to
rise over the world with renewed vigour and power.
Back then in pagan Rome it was the time of heathen festivities in
worship of the sun. History reveals how this day acquired a new
significance under the rule of Emperor Aurelian.
 Outlandishly
even in those pagan days during the Saturnalia work of every kind
ceased and slaves were given extra sustenance. As the Saturnalia
returned each year it brought with it thoughts of the peaceful reign
of Saturn when festivities were boisterous and cheerful.
Romans ate big dinners and their banquets were decked with boughs of
laurel and green trees, with lighted candles and oil lamps. The
streets were crowded with noisy processions of men and women
carrying lighted tapers and public places were decked with flowers
and shrubs.
It comes as no surprise that the present day tradition of giving and
receiving presents, and partying was almost as common in Roman times
as it is now. Nobody can dispute the fact that nothing changed as
our present day “Christmas spirit” is actually as stressful as it
was felt during the celebration of this old Roman festival.
The burgeoning expense of buying gifts, the pressure of last-minute
shopping and the heightened expectations of holiday travel can all
combine to undermine our best intentions (reach out for more
tranquillisers).
Notwithstanding that the New Year finds us penniless and overweight
we all dream of a Merry Christmas and continue to treasure this time
as the golden holiday of the year. A Merry Christmas to all.
The author is a director in GMM Business
Solutions. |
