Archive for the ‘Consumerism’ tag
Only Three Sleeps Left!
So I started the Twelve Days of Christmas by questioning the whole commercialisation, religious factor and the massive amount of consumerism that engulfs the holiday.
Nine days later, a guest post from a fellow cynic about how it was the silly season and the festivities should be embraced; I’ve ticked off the shopping list, wrapped the presents and sent the cards off. So who would have thought, even I’ve started to warm to the idea of Christmas this year!
We should forget altogether about religion, consumerism, buying too much junk and over indulging.
Saying You’ve Been Good All Year = Presents
I’ve been shown this week (by a five year old) that Christmas is about a few things;
- Continuously reminding everyone how many sleeps there are until Christmas
- Knowing the fridge is FULL of chocolate
- Very sneakily peeling off the sticky tape of one end of the wrapped present, having a peak, folding the wrapping back over and positioning that present under the tree so that people will be none the wiser
- Eating ALL of the days in the chocolate advent calendar in one sitting
- Sitting on Santa’s lap at every shopping centre to tell him how good you’ve been and to tell him how many horses you want
Asking If They’ve Been Good All Year = Obedience
Children aside, Christmas isn’t purely about religion or consumerism; I’ve found it’s handy for;
- Being able to bribe children into being good, or else…
- Being able to unload some of your un-opened junk from last year (hello re-gifting)
- Realising that you’re the undisputed champion of present wrapping
- Getting some cool* new stuff that you had no idea about (*to be confirmed)
- STILL receiving Christmas presents from your family pets
And let’s face it, you can probably vouch for everything in the first list too…
Wish you were still young enough to REALLY enjoy Christmas? Let me know if there’s anything I missed from either lists!
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A Festive Guest Post – The Crispness of Christmas
When Andrew asked me if I fancied writing a festive guest post for his ‘12 days of Christmas’ (or is it ‘Crispness’?) series, I went back and re-read the first entry, to try and get down with the spirit of the thing. You know, extrapolate ideas, see if there was anything I could copy, make sure I didn’t re-use his jokes, that sort of thing.
I came away thinking a couple of deep thoughts. Firstly, “Why is that lettuce wearing a woolly hat? Didn’t he steal that from me?” Second, “I think Christmas probably gets a bit too much crap for being aggressively consumerist, doesn’t it?”
Don’t get me wrong, shopkeepers have far too towering an erection for festivity. If I wanted to buy Christmas lights in July, I’d expect society to section me, not encourage it. And I dread to think about the carbon footprint of some houses’ decorations. I hope they had the decency to assemble their own power station in the back garden.
Having said that: It’s nice, isn’t it? It’s happy in a really over the top way. It might be garish, but this is a garish season. The people who use only the most tasteful of wrapping paper and discrete fairy lights are few and far between. And even if you are those people, it’s hardly fair to deny others their Christmas. No-one is forcing you to look at it. (Unless you live across the road, I suppose.)
It’s easy to get down on the festive season for being tacky and somehow undeserving of time, when we think that time is better spent on side projects and escaping to Glorious Freedom. But if we don’t go out and have some fun occasionally, we will be boring, tired and just plain obsessed. Christmas is a gleeful combination of tacky entertainment and deeper meaning, why not embrace it for a few days a year?
I should probably be less enthusiastic about the bright-red, fur-trimmed dark side of Christmas, as I have my very own achingly cool cynic’s lifestyle blog and I can feel my credibility leaking away.
But to hell with it. It’s Christmas time, and that means time off questing for the almighty higher goal, for at least a few days. The New Year will be here soon enough, bringing hours to reflect upon the year gone by, plan for the future and get thoroughly drunk. But for now, let’s embrace buying stuff.
Remember: They would not sell life-size reindeer replicas made of elastic bands if there was not an audience for them. This is what the people want. We will not change the nature of Christmas celebrations by moaning about it.
Nick Bryan of Feeding the Black Dog and Behatted fame is a writer of all things humourous, snarky, educational and amusing. A frequent guest of the Free World, this is the second time he’s been kind enough to write an article for the site. I’d recommend you head over to Nick’s blog for a daily dose of the real world.
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The Twelve Days of Crispness…
On the First Day of Crispness
No not the painful Christmas carol, my version of the twelve days of Christmas. Crispness you ask? Well I’ve concluded that the general public cares more about how fresh their Christmas Day salad is (Australia) than what the Christmas holiday actually represents.
So unless you’re Christian, Catholic, or have any other affiliation with ‘him’ then what are you dishing out presents for? I overheard a lady in the shops the other day, talking to someone on her cell phone and stressing out about whether she was getting the right present, if it was going to be what the recipient wanted, would they like it, was it the right colour. Too much stress!
My Twelve Days of Christmas
I’m going to attempt to write something everyday for the next twelve days with the overall theme focused on you, leading your own free world. The next twelve days you’re going to get a few free world updates, some results from my online income experiments that you can try yourself, how you can travel the world tomorrow and a look at social media.
Back to Crispness. I was recently invited to a Friday night Shabbat (Jewish dinner) by a friend. We washed up, didn’t speak, broke bread, drank wine, had three kosher courses, didn’t have milk in our tea and then they sang some Hebrew prayers. Everyone was well dressed, the conversation was polite and the table setting was rather fancy. I was impressed by the table setting and exclaimed “This is pretty flash, you must really turn it on for Christmas dinner!” when I realised to my own stupidity, that Jewish folk don’t celebrate Christmas as they’re not particularly down with the whole Jesus caper.
So when people frown upon religion, think its stupid, over-rated or not for them, they still ‘celebrate’ Christ’s Mass. That makes sense?
The Good
Christmas is good for a few things, religious or not. It gives working slaves a reason to take a break from the drudgery and it also encourages time for friends and family to get together.
The Christmas holiday shouldn’t be about trying to please everyone, running around like crazy trying to be at every family event under the sun, having to blow your budget on presents, over indulgence or consumerism.
Retail outlets prey on Christmas cheer. Think of buzzwords like ‘Stocking Fillers’ (useless crap), ‘Christmas Essentials’ (more useless crap) and ‘Last Minute Panic’ (hurry to buy our useless crap!). Retail outlets start the Christmas buzz earlier and earlier every year, this year we had it start in October and now we’re waiting for the Boxing Day/January sales because if we weren’t dumb enough to spend all our money on presents for Christmas now we can make up for it in the sales!
That’s enough Christmas cheer for the first day of the countdown. Stay Tuned.
Anything you’d like to read about in the Twelve Days of Crispness? Leave a comment or to receive all twelve days in your inbox sign up here.
