Christmas

So, it's some ten weeks to christmas. Am I excited? Not really. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, due to circumstances beyond my control, I'm unlikely to get my christmas pay before christmas. This means that I'll have to scrimp and save (which is proving hard enough already because my pay is rarely on time - I'm a month overdue now) just to get SOMETHING for the people I buy presents for.

This brings me on to my second concern over christmas. What is christmas? Why is it celebrated? We all know the religious background to christmas. Trouble is, how many non-religious people still celebrate christmas? I'm a wiccan (kinda). I celebrate christmas. True, I could attest my activities to a celebration of Yule (which is on the same date, conveniently) - but that's not strictly true, as I don't celebrate any other wiccan holidays so I'd just be making excuses.

Now before I come across as a miser and a bit of a scrooge, I'd like to say that I do love giving gifts. Christmas is a time for gift-giving, which is good. But how many people are guilty of giving gifts ONLY at this time of the year? How many people use christmas as an excuse to catch up with paying regards to friends or family who would otherwise remain forgotten? Why should I wait for this one day from 365 to show people I think of them and care of them? Wouldn't your life be much better if, instead of receiving a truckload of rubbish one day a year, you receive random, meaningful gifts throughout the year? Thus, I'm not a big fan of christmas. I hate the commercialism that's been imposed on it. I hate that society is practically forcing me to spend oodles of cash on people all in one go - regardless of whether I want to buy them gifts or not.

So, this christmas I'm hopefully going to sod my family (who are just as drawn into this commercial crap as the next person) and spend Christmas with someone special (who's just as anti-christmas as I am).