What is ‘Christmas’?

Well before I start this latest thought/consideration of mine, let me wish you all, the best for tomorrow, and please feel free to comment.

As I was brought up, there was a culture or belief that Christmas was for family, celebration, sharing time together, giving gifts (although it was the thought that counted). There was also some emphasis on the fact it was a Christian festival, with my parents loosely encouraging us to participate in the traditions that occur at this time of year like taking us to church and decorating the house.

However by about 12 I had lost interest in the materialism, by 15 the sharing time with family had disappeared and then from about 17 my interest in observing these traditions involved the sending of a small number of cards and avoiding giving or being required to receive gifts.

Now my interest in it has spread to include contempt for the greed, materialism, ignorance and waste that is demonstrated almost every time I leave the house at the moment.

Whilst working at that restaurant I found myself almost being forced into some modern day capitalist/materialist ritual that precedes that great celebration of greed and wastefulness, as it has become, tomorrow.

This Secret Santa thing is it appears a time honoured tradition….
What annoyed me the most about this little ritual was that
I was being told to buy a gift for someone I knew nothing about, and had barely had any interaction with. To me this seems ridiculous that rather than build relationships with each other we’ll just gifts.

What’s all this about then people, why does this tradition exist?

Is it simply because we have got so caught up in replacing time, consideration and empathy for each other with items/things that we do this instead of actually knowing them.

In general I don’t support this religious festival for many reasons but the main one is that I don’t believe that the man who’s ‘birthday’ this is suppose to be remembering and celebrating would actually support it. In fact, I think he would have utter disdain for this consumerism driven society of ours.

I don’t like the thought of buying something for someone simply to conform, or feel the need to buy things for people because society and the media says I should be.

I feel like Christmas should be a time for spending time with people you care about and reflection, and not all about what things your gonna get, or a declaration of extravagance through excessive giving.

Saying all this, I do enjoy ‘Christmas’, as everyone is distracted and I get left to catch up on my never ending paperwork!

Have a great day if you celebrate it.