Seasons Bleatings

Love it or hate it, you can't ignore it. As a Pagan, I'd consider myself to be exempt from this most commericialised of Christian festivals, but like the large majority of Westerners, I find myself raising a glass to the Gods of overdraft, and singing the praises of badly wrapped niceties on December 25th.

Recently, I've found myself being asked by many if I am ready for Christmas. To the last person who asked I replied "Hell yes!" and she said "lucky thing, I've still got to find someone to watch the children while I got out shopping."
Ah. The problem here is that what you said and what I heard were two completely different things. You said "Have you spent all your money on things that will be at a third of the price and on buy one get one free in a fortnight? And have now consigned yourself to worrying whether you've got the right thing/got enough/got the money to pay for it all." and what I heard was "Are you ready to lay around in an overstuffed armchair, rubbing your overstuffed belly and balancing a glass of something potent on it, revelling in the fact that even you can't be expected to work on Christmas Day, and that this time of year its socially acceptable, if not mandatory, to be drunk from your waking moment and if you are very lucky people might mistake you for someone suffering from festive excess and not realise that your behaviour on Christmas Day is almost identical to that of every other day with the exception that you try to make the effort to be out of your pyjamas by lunchtime?"

You can see where these misunderstandings could cause problems couldn't you?

What has particularly struck me this year is the polarity of people's reactions to the occasion. The unlikeliest of people admit to putting up fairy lights and listening to Mariah Carey and Wham! whilst many others turn into angry young men (and I find it's mostly men) who would happily stab those cheery inflatable snowmen that festoon people's gardens. Supposedly a season of joy, what joy comes to those who put up their decorations in August? For whose benefit is it? It is out of festive cheer, or to spite those around them? I'm reminded of an article I read recently, where a woman had put up a lonely string of rope lights across the front of her bungalow, and recieved an anonymous letter telling her that she was bringing down the tone of the neighbourhood (oh come on, if you are going to be a complete bitch, at least have the courage to admit to it.)
The woman did not give in and remove her lights (good on her, they may have looked a bit lonely, but not overly cheap) but instead said "I've a good mind to put up a flashing Santa to spite the person who wrote this letter." Christmas decorations put up in spite? Maybe my heathen brain has missed a connection here, but surely that's not really the point. If you really want to be spiteful and teach the people who wrote to you a lesson (and you said you had a good idea who they were) then show them the sort of compassion we saw from King Herod - slaughter the bastards until you find the one you want!

Tidings of comfort and joy to all my readers (three at the last count) and may your Yuletide log fall from your hearth, and burn down your house.