Originally published in The Saint, December '09
Don’t get me overly wrong. I’m a fan of Christmas Day: the food, the presents, the alcohol, even the family bonding; it can actually be rather fun, if you try hard at it, and it’s all over by midnight anyway. Although Boxing Day leaves everyone feeling fat, poor and miserable, it’s still a reasonable pay-off for the day before. And that’s the crux of it – it’s just one, neat, solitary day. But what doesn’t so much get my goat as bludgeon it to death, is the month-long build-up that holds the Western world so tightly in its saccharine grip that I barely survive it without vandalising public property or assaulting a shop assistant.
I fume not against Christmas itself, but against the Christmas season. That interminable period, starting around late November, where we are constantly reminded, through adverts and movies and pop songs, just how very jolly we should all be – and how much useless stuff we should then buy in order to achieve this elevated state of bouncy yuletide bliss. But it needn’t be so. There is a sickness at the heart of the Christmas season – and it must be identified before it is exorcised. Let’s consider the usual suspects.
Today’s most shouty critics of Christmas tend be the New Atheists, led by the lovely Dawkins and Friends club, who are rightly famed for their impeccable manners and tolerant, conciliatory attitude. They argue that an enlightened secular society should have no truck with a holiday that celebrates some tosh about a teenage Israeli (boo hiss) virgin giving birth to some charlatan who could walk on ponds and multiply salmon. This season they’ve even published a manifesto – The Atheist's Guide to Christmas – in which droll chaps like Charlie Brooker and Derren Brown make jokes about how stupid you Christians so, like, totally are. Being an Atheist myself, such a stance is not altogether lost on me. But it is surely the religious aspects of Christmas, what with the injunctions to think upon the poor and be thankful for one’s lot, that are the least vulgar and shallow, and offensive to the eyes and ears. Christian hymns tend to be rather beautiful and Midnight Mass, though alien to my upbringing, is an undeniably graceful ceremony. Surely any sensible person would pick those over flashy multi-coloured lights and crass Mariah Carey pop songs. Religion, if an evil, is certainly the least of the many yuletide evils.
One could also make a shrill anti-capitalist argument against Christmas™. Something about the festive season being a conspiracy perpetuated by evil corporations to hoodwink the decadent masses into buying lots of shiny plastic toys made by Pakistani five-year-olds. Indeed, Christmas has become a gross monument to unthinking consumption – that which stokes the wheels of any free-market economy. And this certainly wasn’t always the case. Every year we feel the need to bankrupt ourselves and take out loans – much to the delight of our banks – in order not to be shown up by the present-buying prowess of those we know and (supposedly) love. But I shall refrain from getting all Naomi Klein over the issue. There are more important things at stake. Things like good public taste.
Come December, high streets become no go areas – and St Andrews’ Market Street is no exception. Walk into any shop, even one that would never normally play music, and you will be subjected to Super Fun Christmas Hits Volume 478, presumably chosen by some cowardly manager under the belief that failure to engage in the Christmas ‘spirit’ – whatever that may actually be – will result in a mass boycott and possibly grievous vandalism by yobbos in elf costumes. Christmas music – is there anything more offensive to common decency? Sure, many Christmas songs are simply jazz standards – and intelligent, cultured people are supposed to like jazz, right? Well, not jazz songs about snowmen and sleigh rides. I once worked in a Waterstone’s over Christmas; the music still stalks my nightmares. And then there’s the flashing lights – why do they need to flash? – and the inflatable reindeer and the fake snow and I really could go on but I’m running short of bile. All the above is founded on the notion that vulgarity is fun. Those who spit in their mulled wine at the sight of fat inflatable Santas are apparently missing the point – Christmas is supposed to a communal exercise in bad taste, stupid. This, as Karl Marx would say, is a case of false consciousness. It simply needn’t – and shouldn’t – be the case.
To conclude, the objection that any intelligent misanthrope should have against the festive season is not that it is expensive, founded on a historical lie, or a shady capitalist conspiracy. It is that it is an unnecessary orgy of bad taste that reduces the otherwise noble human race to gurning toddlers who soil themselves at the sight of bright colours and dribble at the sound of jingle-jangle pop tunes. So, to you all, I wish a merry Christmas. Just remember to destroy that inflatable reindeer in a fun, cosy bonfire and invite all your friends.
Don’t get me overly wrong. I’m a fan of Christmas Day: the food, the presents, the alcohol, even the family bonding; it can actually be rather fun, if you try hard at it, and it’s all over by midnight anyway. Although Boxing Day leaves everyone feeling fat, poor and miserable, it’s still a reasonable pay-off for the day before. And that’s the crux of it – it’s just one, neat, solitary day. But what doesn’t so much get my goat as bludgeon it to death, is the month-long build-up that holds the Western world so tightly in its saccharine grip that I barely survive it without vandalising public property or assaulting a shop assistant.
I fume not against Christmas itself, but against the Christmas season. That interminable period, starting around late November, where we are constantly reminded, through adverts and movies and pop songs, just how very jolly we should all be – and how much useless stuff we should then buy in order to achieve this elevated state of bouncy yuletide bliss. But it needn’t be so. There is a sickness at the heart of the Christmas season – and it must be identified before it is exorcised. Let’s consider the usual suspects.
Today’s most shouty critics of Christmas tend be the New Atheists, led by the lovely Dawkins and Friends club, who are rightly famed for their impeccable manners and tolerant, conciliatory attitude. They argue that an enlightened secular society should have no truck with a holiday that celebrates some tosh about a teenage Israeli (boo hiss) virgin giving birth to some charlatan who could walk on ponds and multiply salmon. This season they’ve even published a manifesto – The Atheist's Guide to Christmas – in which droll chaps like Charlie Brooker and Derren Brown make jokes about how stupid you Christians so, like, totally are. Being an Atheist myself, such a stance is not altogether lost on me. But it is surely the religious aspects of Christmas, what with the injunctions to think upon the poor and be thankful for one’s lot, that are the least vulgar and shallow, and offensive to the eyes and ears. Christian hymns tend to be rather beautiful and Midnight Mass, though alien to my upbringing, is an undeniably graceful ceremony. Surely any sensible person would pick those over flashy multi-coloured lights and crass Mariah Carey pop songs. Religion, if an evil, is certainly the least of the many yuletide evils.
One could also make a shrill anti-capitalist argument against Christmas™. Something about the festive season being a conspiracy perpetuated by evil corporations to hoodwink the decadent masses into buying lots of shiny plastic toys made by Pakistani five-year-olds. Indeed, Christmas has become a gross monument to unthinking consumption – that which stokes the wheels of any free-market economy. And this certainly wasn’t always the case. Every year we feel the need to bankrupt ourselves and take out loans – much to the delight of our banks – in order not to be shown up by the present-buying prowess of those we know and (supposedly) love. But I shall refrain from getting all Naomi Klein over the issue. There are more important things at stake. Things like good public taste.
Come December, high streets become no go areas – and St Andrews’ Market Street is no exception. Walk into any shop, even one that would never normally play music, and you will be subjected to Super Fun Christmas Hits Volume 478, presumably chosen by some cowardly manager under the belief that failure to engage in the Christmas ‘spirit’ – whatever that may actually be – will result in a mass boycott and possibly grievous vandalism by yobbos in elf costumes. Christmas music – is there anything more offensive to common decency? Sure, many Christmas songs are simply jazz standards – and intelligent, cultured people are supposed to like jazz, right? Well, not jazz songs about snowmen and sleigh rides. I once worked in a Waterstone’s over Christmas; the music still stalks my nightmares. And then there’s the flashing lights – why do they need to flash? – and the inflatable reindeer and the fake snow and I really could go on but I’m running short of bile. All the above is founded on the notion that vulgarity is fun. Those who spit in their mulled wine at the sight of fat inflatable Santas are apparently missing the point – Christmas is supposed to a communal exercise in bad taste, stupid. This, as Karl Marx would say, is a case of false consciousness. It simply needn’t – and shouldn’t – be the case.
To conclude, the objection that any intelligent misanthrope should have against the festive season is not that it is expensive, founded on a historical lie, or a shady capitalist conspiracy. It is that it is an unnecessary orgy of bad taste that reduces the otherwise noble human race to gurning toddlers who soil themselves at the sight of bright colours and dribble at the sound of jingle-jangle pop tunes. So, to you all, I wish a merry Christmas. Just remember to destroy that inflatable reindeer in a fun, cosy bonfire and invite all your friends.
Very sharp, very funny, but with thoughtfulness behind the well chosen targets.
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