Oi, Santa! Pass Us That Bottle, Will You...

In the words of Noddy Holder:

"IT'S CHRISTMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!"

Oh fuck off.

Any sort of lovechild from Religion and Capitalism is bound to be a disaster, and, lo and behold, it is. It's easy to simply ask, "what is the point?" but this fails on two respects: one, if there is no point to life, as I believe, then logically, there is no point to Christmas, and two, there is something much more cynical going on here.

Yes, it's a cliché, but Christmas is not a Christian festival, and never was. Any and every "primitive" culture had some sort of festival to mark the Winter Solstice, and rather than spend effort on removing it, the Church simply absorbed its own traditions into the festival, in a great big religious con.

But there was another ingredient, one that's developed over time. Corporate greed injected consumerism into the day, just as with every other half-festival, admittedly, but there seems to be more emphasis on Christmas than on any other event. We are encouraged - directly or otherwise - to spend, spend, spend on other people, and that we reap the virtuous rewards of giving - whilst giving the most to the fat cunts, of course.

I will admit that I spent all day in Cardiff's brand new Temple of Capitalism (sponsored by the DFS half price sale) buying shite for other people, simply because it's easier in the long run. To say after 18 years that I am to utterly shun Christmas in all it's forms sounds good on paper, but you try explaining that to the grandparents. It's now so ingrained into our social conscience that it's almost impossible to ignore, and even then, my suggestions that we all just chip in a tenner and call it "Christmas" fell on deaf ears.

I can accept the now secular nature of it, it's just a part of a wider culture. I can just about accept the consumerist nature; if you accept, regrettably, that we live in a Capitalistic society then, by default, it is society's fault, not "Christmas'".

But I can never lose that nagging feeling that it's all pure escapism: "Yes, I've done shit things all year and been a horrible bastard, but on Christmas Day everything's fine, and I can pretend to be this perfect person. Of course I'm a conscientious person, look how much I work with charity every Christmas, even though I can afford to give and help all year round."

Yes, escapism is good thing, and uffach, I feel escapist every other minute. It's not what actually happens itself that gets me, I always get some sort of enjoyment from the day, but there's a sinister edge here, that people aren't aware of, and that unsettles me. More unsettling, personally, is that for all my ranting and raving, I'm just as bad as the rest of them.

This has probably all been said before, and in a much clearer way than someone with half a bottle of wine attacking their liver, but fuck it. I can only end with a nice little phrase that can describe nearly every single thing in the universe:

Pathetic, isn't it?