'And so this is Christmas, and what have we done?' as I believe a Beatle once asked. What d'you reckon? Right now, what strikes me, is the fact that the Capitalist system has spent it's time coming up with the usual festive fayre of hideous adverts. You'd think they could find better causes to put their cash into, wouldn't you?
Do they honestly think we'll all be won over by cynical exploitations of WW1, stage school kids, unrealistic family tableaux and those fucking penguins. I wonder if John Lewis have thought about all the children who won't even have a bloody tree, never mind anything underneath it, feathered or otherwise?
The ones that really get me are the ones showing some smiley woman, hair and make-up perfect, serving a golden turkey on a table gloriously set with six different vegetables and classy decorations, surrounded by a beaming, appreciative family. You'll make yourself unhappy trying to live up to it. I don't care how careful your preparations are, it's NEVER like that. At the very least your gravy goes lumpy, and one of the kids is being sick having OD'd on chocolate. Sometimes, the whole damn thing's a shambles and enough to wipe the smile off any sweaty, dishevelled, stressed out domestic goddesses face. It doesn't matter! And why aren't there more men in these ads, showing us their perfectly al dente sprouts? Women aren't just for Christmas.
This year I've been advocating small, local businesses and artisans. These are the shops and people that make our communities unique and interesting....and are disappearing fast, leaving us the poorer. Having decided to put my money where my mouth is, I've found this year's Christmas shopping a really lovely experience and, perhaps surprisingly, a hell of a lot simpler. It was so nice to be able to chat to the people selling me their goods. When your shop is your livelihood you care what your customers think.
Stand in any city centre and you'll see all the same shop fronts that you'll encounter in every city, the length and breadth of the country. Go through their doors and you'll find all the same stuff as in the one next to it. You'll end up overwhelmed, bewildered and too tired to think straight. Go into a small, family run local shop and, the choice may be smaller, but I can guarantee it'll be a lot more interesting and it's much easier to focus when you're not so distracted. And you might just go away with something a bit special. Oh, and you/re less likely to get throat slammed by someone grabbing the last Barbie in the shop.
And it's not just gifts. It's great for food too. And I know the usual argument, that small shops are more expensive, and of course I'm sympathetic to that view. But it's not always the case. A local butcher will happily sell you one chop or two sausages, and you might even get a chat and a laugh thrown in with your mince. They'll value your custom and want you to come back, so they'll be nice to you. In the supermarket you're offered those nasty, polystyrene trays containing the amount they've decided you should want, regardless of your needs. And an added bonus of the little shop is that you avoid the insidious lure of a stroll round the supermarket shelves, buying things you didn't go in for and don't need. See, it actually saves money.
I even sought out a local, independent wine merchant who spent as much time and trouble helping me choose a couple of bottles of plonk as if I was ordering crates of vintage. It was fun, unlike grabbing stuff off a shelf. And he didn't give me any shit about 'hints of self loathing with finishing notes of mortified tears.' He just told me what tasted nice.
I know, people are busy, There isn't always time to go from shop to shop. I'm just saying it's an option, and a pretty good one.
I'm not going to bang on about how, when I was a kid, we'd crawl down our icy beds to find a darned sock with a tangerine in the toe before having to riddle the grate and fettle the pots and all our other mysterious, working-class rituals......'but we were 'appy.' I'm no Scrooge. I'm up for some over indulgence, as much as the next sybarite.
I really do like Christmas. I'm content to leave the religious aspects to those who believe in them, but I have a lifelong desire for fairy lights, enjoy trying to consume my own body weight in mince pies and I like drinking Baileys, which I only ever do at Christmas. I have no idea why. For me, Christmas is a sparkly little oasis in the darkest time of winter.
I love having family and friends cluttering up the house, and a Christmas tree with parcels underneath. Basically, I like all the superficial stuff. I'm a deeply shallow person.
But I don't like the corporate world, and its blatant, insulting attempts to add yet another lining to it's already over-stuffed pockets, at our expense. We're not all easily duped consumer junkies. I think most people are aware that a lot of advertising is just lying, wrapped up in pretty colours. Of course that face cream won't bestow youth and beauty, that crappy cereal can't make you fit and healthy and using that washing powder doesn't make you mother of the year. We know. We're not dim. We'll buy what we can afford and what we've found, from experience, does the job. So why do they bother?
Sainsbury's try to justify that awful ad by saying a percentage of the profits go to the British Legion.
I don't know how much the whole thing cost to make, but it looks expensive. Couldn't they just have donated that money directly to veterans charities and saved us the squirming embarrassment of watching their mis-judged marketing ploy and its sanitised version of a terrible war. All they really care about is selling more mince pies and Cava. If they can't be tasteful they could at least try being honest. But maybe that's asking just a bit too much.
Happy Christmas!!
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