Oh for heavens sake I don't like Christmas and here I am listening to a Christmas CD... clearly I need my head read - oh wait been doing that for nearly 18 months already!
Christmas is just not my season. Maybe because here in sunny SA we don't have the 'magic' of the snow and the whole White Christmas fairy tale. Also the fact that decorations are in the shops by October - together with the obligatory Boney M playing throughout the shopping centres. You know Boney M is not the worst - I think Whams Last Christmas has to be my all time worst!!!!
I find the Season of Giving to be very much the Season of Taking. And bitterness when what is wanted isn't forthcoming. There is a mad rush to buy bigger and better each year. I have 17 & 15 year old teenage sons who have almost every conceivable gadget that could possibly want - quite frankly I'm now out of ideas and even the willingness to want to try and come up with some kind of gift.
I don't even want to do the huge Christmas lunch thing. All it means is hours slaving over the stove, followed by hours of cleaning. If I'm going to cook I'd rather then package up meals into single servings and get in my car and go find people who are on the streets and distribute some real Christmas cheer. At least that way I can maybe feel like I am contributing at least some good.
My neighbour across the road has his house lit up like a Christmas tree and then some. I haven't even got one decoration out and I seriously don't know if I'd even bother. Oh my I can just see the horror on the some of your faces. How can I not put up the Christmas tree and decorations... can you tell me what for? The entire Christmas message is lost anyway - a tree is certainly not going to make resonate any clearer. And I'm not just talking about the message of the birth of Jesus. I'm also talking about the getting together of families. The celebrating of family time. Everybody helping, kids playing in the garden, board games after lunch followed by a snooze...
There is none of that now. How many shops will be open on Christmas Day? The convenient excuse now is of course people of different faiths. So if you find yourself to be a Muslim or Hindu or even Atheist and you work for one of the big retailers whose bottom line means more than family time then chances are that you will find yourself working on Christmas Day.
With so many starving, homeless people, those displaced by wars, Ebola, corruption and all the other heartbreak around the world I just find it so hard to get up on Christmas morning and pretend for a day that none of that exists.
But even without all of that I'm over the excess. Every year it has to be bigger and better.
Make it smaller and meaningful.
I'm certainly going to do my best this year to give it a try. You may not be able to help a billion or a million but you could help 1 or 10 ... and a home cooked meal on Christmas day could mean all the difference in their lives and be a small sacrifice in yours.
Her Christmas Grinchness