After a lot of trouble with this celebration that is more commercial than spiritual, after debating endlessly whether it is wise to yield to the trivial lures of marketing and spend on gifts or stand your ground and focus on religious significance, I have come to the conclusion that I am divided on this topic.
On the one hand, I consider it absolutely shameless, all right?!, to sell any kind of junk and force it down poor consumers' throat under the pretext of a "Christmas present for the one you love". Even if it is not a proper junk, it still encourages the concept of buying the affection of others and makes it acceptable to try and negotiate emotions.
"Daddy loves you so much that he talked to Santa to bring you a bike!"
"My boyfriend got me a car for Christmas, so it is true love."
"I only got a stinkin' t-shirt for Christmas, how pathetic is that, you really don't love me, you miserable bump, where would you be without me?!"
And other silly lines we all know about.
On the other hand, I am hooked on Christmas songs. Not carols, although I find some of them quite nice. I am talking about the "pop" songs of the season. What I hum most of the times throughout the year is "'tis the season to be jolly, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la". I do not do it on purpose, the palatal la-la-la gets out of my mouth without prior approval. It is already a reflex.
I listen to online Christmas radios all year long, and regularly (daily) starting with November 1st.
When I shared the office, this was a major issue, since I was the only one in favour of such practices and music. Understandably, I had to resort to headphones.
I consider this thing similar to smoking/no smoking issue. Those who don't smoke consider the smoking ban fair and welcome, while the smokers think this is discrimination. Those who don't like Christmas, for their own various motives, have heart rates going through the roof when hearing "season greetings" radios. I and the other 3 persons who enjoy the holidays section of iTunes radio, might consider the rest biased and it is only the season spirit that reminds us to be civil and behave considerately by using headphones.
On this sensitive approach, please enjoy the Frank Kelly transposition of "12 Days to Christmas".
Hopefully, I will be able to work out the technical details of sharing a youtube link on a blog.
Oh, and please note that I am not the one who started it, almost all shops have started selling Xmas stuff as of mid-October. That would increase the Xmas shopping period to more than 2 months, wouldn't it? Actually, this is what reminded me to switch from Loliradiosoft to Play Xmas UK.
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