Christmas offends my sensibilities – but I just love it.
Christmas was born with the birth of a myth that invokes Christianity and became a marketer’s dream when the idea of gift-giving captured the modern mind.
Christmas, in its present form, worsens difficulties the world faces with the exhaustion of resources and encourages a way of life that is the antithesis of a sustainable world.
Christmas and climate change, or global warming if you prefer, seem unrelated, but are inextricably linked with industry working overtime and ploughing through resources to churn out what it is we want, rather than need, for this festive season.
Christmas does, however, have a positive dimension in that it encourages altruism throughout December, a generousity that is largely in retreat for the rest of the year.
Christmas is for many, wrongly and yet understandably, a real or imagined deadline for tasks ranging from the completion of projects to decision time about relationships or other personal moments of consequence.
Christmas gives oxygen to a lie that may seem innocuous and fun, but in a subtle manner illustrates to those at the heart of the deception, our children, that they should treat those in authority with some suspicion, bringing on an uneasiness that has the potential to surreptitiously trouble them throughout their lives.
Christmas, despite its Christian underpinnings and its consumerist overtones brings about brief moments that point to the richness of humanity and in so doing unearths the warmth, connectedness and collaboration that will be essential if humanity is to find the capacity to dispense with its differences and stand as one, rather than many, in confronting emerging difficulties.
Christmas for me will be particularly enjoyable as it will be the first I have spent with my one and three-year-old grandsons, something about which I often feel distress for long have I believed that we should all live where we live, meaning families should not be in disparate parts of the country, or even worse, overseas.
Christmas brings its dilemmas, but for me it is a particularly special time and I trust it is exactly that for you – season’s greetings!
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