Definitely not the scene beneath my own tree…who receives this much stuff at Christmas…#weareanationthatarespoiled?
As my newsfeed floods with the annual deluge of extravagance, greed and festive one-up-man-ship, it’s only Boxing Day night and already I’m desperate to close the door on others’ Christmas exploits. I need to hide away from the minute by minute rundown of exactly how mountainous the piles of toys are now that “he’s been” and be free to erase from my memory every cringe that is summoned by the steady stream of uninspired marriage proposals that happen on Christmas Day each year. And more imploringly, I urge my friends to do the same. My message is simple: keep your Christmas to yourself, and love what you have. Let me elaborate…
I’ve dwelt on this for a few years now and whilst I am certain cries of, “Bah, humbug!” along with a healthy dose of criticism will be flung my way, my simple concern that our Christmas time is now defined by what we see, read and imagine to be the right way of celebrating, is now a gnawing worry that’s forced me to reconsider all I understood as tradition.
It would, quite frankly, be hypocrisy to claim that it’s a social media-born issue, that FB reigns as the root of all evil and that users are preposterous for doing what they do best, sharing the minutiae of their lives. Let’s get something straight, at times, I adore the beauty of what we behold at our fingertips and some of the social media shaped nuggets that swirl around cyber-space truly can inspire, educate, humour, heal, motivate…the list goes on. But it’s when I see the wall-to-wall snapshots of sitting rooms crammed to the ceiling with piles and piles of gifts, whole living spaces rearranged to accommodate ’round 1′ of the prize-giving (round 2 are stored at Granny’s), and parcels stacked perilously high showcasing exactly how much you must love your kids/boyfriend/wife/dog, that my mind gets to thinking, who is this really for? And when did we succumb to this cyber-sparring with our virtual community-basically a big fat round of, “my Christmas is bigger and better than your Christmas.”?
And this is just the beginning. I’ve seen no less than 84 variations on the festive table laying, every shade of the colour wheel experimented with on someone’s dining table, somewhere. Mulled wine and a mince pie? Yep, you and a hundred or so other statuses told me that that was your sugar hit of choice. Throw a few thousand pictures of, quite frankly, unremarkable looking turkey dinners into the mix and you’re starting to get the picture here. It’s a frustrating and upsetting glimpse at Christmasses through a screen, a camera lens, a hashtag, a status. Lacking in originality, personality and sincerity, the magic is waning as our memories merge, posted as pictures and ill-planned musings, into the homogenous stew of what we think we should be doing to have the best Christmas and what seems to be the most urgent, to ensure we compare favourably with those on the next laptop.
To everyone out there who enjoyed a stack of gifts, gained a fiancé and troughed your way through a gut-busting Christmas lunch, of course, I wish you the seasons finest. This is anything but a self-righteous, sanctimonious or priggish guide to how you should be spending your Christmas. My only wish for next year, is that more of us concentrate on what’s going on within our own four walls, live it as it happens, not as it’s captured on screen, and trust that happiness is born out of those precious hours spent with the precious few in whose company you choose to spend Christmas-the uniqueness and privacy of which is the greatest and most perfect gift of all.
Peace, love, heartsandwaggs.x
heartsandwaggs 