Christmas and and me getting all serious.

It's boxing day. I should have planned my xmas break better. I'm bored. Next year maybe I'll get a board game, perhaps a puzzle. Downstairs the men in my house are watching football. The anticipation of the Christmas holidays is far better than the reality. Today people will be waking up counting the cost. Melted credit cards. Debts that will go on and on and with a bit of luck - though probably not - be cleared just in time for next Christmas.

To be truthfull isn't Christmas as meaningless and empty as a cracker. Pretty and sparkly and filled with so much promise and yet delivering so little. Unless you have Fortum and Mason crackers - £100 for six crackers - containing such delights as a silver plated letter opener, bottle stopper and butter knife. Nah, even posh crackers are a disappointment.

Perhaps the fact that Christmas does not fill the basic need of a human being explains why it is so much of an anti-climax. I mean, it is supposed to be about Christ and the season of goodwill to all. But not much of that goodwill was demonstrated when an acquitance of mine was practically rugby tackled by an old-age-pensioner for the last available trolley in the Co-op two days before Christmas. Or the young mother who was loudly berated in Morrisons by an old woman because she had brought her baby with her to the supermarket and the pram was in her way.

And what is Christmas anyway? A pagan festival. The church hijacked December 25th to celebrate Christ's birth because they saw all the pagans having a jolly time and decided to take advantage of it. December is in fact when pagan festivals took place during the winter solstice when the days began to lengthen to celebrate the rebirth of the sun. The Romans had a festival about this time dedicated to Saturn, the god of agriculture. It was called Saturnalia. Eating too much and giving presents came from this festival. But Mithra the Roman god of light was perhaps the one that so-called Christians in the 4th century took December 25th from and made it Jesus Christ's birthday.

Saint Boniface takes the credit for inventing the Christmas tree, but he pretty much got it from the pagan German tribes in the Black Forest who used to dress up fir trees and run around them naked. (Glad that last bit hasn't transported itself to our modern-day celebrations) The Celts used to bring in a log to burn during the winter solstice to celebrate the return of the Sun God hence the yule log. Druids dedicated mistletoe to the Goddess of love. Santa Clause a.k.a Father Christmas draws parallels with the long, white-beared norse god, Odin, who used to fly through the sky with his horse, Sleipnir, rewarding children with gifts and candy for placing food near the chimneys for his flying horse. And by the way Coca-Cola didn't invent that jolly rotund figure in the red suit, it was Thomas Nast.

But for some people, despite the pagan connections, Christmas represents a time in the year when good-will should be expressed to all. A time to get away from work, relax and spend time with family and friends. And some people do genuinely see it as a time to honor Jesus Christ. But whatever the significance, the feelings gendered by the holiday are short-lived. As the Royal Bank of Canada said in an essay entitled 'The Spirit of Christmas' what is essentially wrong with the Christmas spirit is that people do not have it all year round. And perhaps that is why it leaves people with an empty feeling and an even emptier bank balance.Perhaps what would give people more satisfaction than all the trappings of Christmas is to do something good to someone else. To be kind. Thoughtful. To help someone. Not to give them a meaningless present because they gave you something last year. But to really do something positive. One Christmas holiday many years ago, I found myself in a position when I was all alone and had nowhere to go or be with over the holidays. So I volunteered to help at a childrens home because they had staff shortages. It was the best Christmas holiday I have ever had. XXX

The demise of our little shops and markets

It's been awhile since I've felt the need for a real moan but last Saturday I had every cause and so dear blog here it is.

All over Britain there are little shops and markets struggling to make a living. They are run by people who love what they do and want to offer a service to local people. But people just want to get in their cars and rush off to the big towns and cities and buy mass produced rubbish churned out by people working in sweat shops in third world countries. They don't give local traders a chance.

This was very evident in my lovely market last Saturday. We had some truly fabulous stalls selling truly fabulous stuff at unbelievable prices. We had beautiful hand made cards, less than half the price of those sold in shops. We had soaps and bath time toiletries and we had jewellery and home baking and pottery and clothes and on and on I could go. We advertised and advertised. But did anyone give us a chance? Nope. Hardly anyone popped in to see what we had. People are moaning and groaning about the state of the economy and how much Christmas is costing them but they could have come to our market and bought really unusual and individual gifts at a fraction of the cost of big stores. Gifts that would have meant something to their recipients because they were 'different' and 'unique'

It's so disheartening when no one will give you the opportunity to show what you can do and that causes traders to give up. How can you keep going when you don't sell anything? You can't.
But one day, when petrol is sooo expensive that no one can afford to drive their cars, people will have to think twice before they go rushing off to the cities to shop. And they will stop and look at their little towns and moan because there aren't any shops and markets and it will be their own fault. It is them I blame for killing our little shops and markets. And the sad thing is, they won't know what lovely shops and markets they had...until they are gone.