Covid was perfect reason to skip Christmas cult of commercialism
JOHN Lennon, he of the round rimmed glasses and penchant for a long lie, knew how to bash out a cheery Christmas song.
The words seem prophetic now. A very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year, let’s hope it’s a good one. Without any fear
And so this is Christmas. And what have we done? Hope we haven’t killed granny for the sake of some fun.
Now the mother of the nation, Nicola Sturgeon, is hoping the bike she let the kid have doesn’t land them in a ditch.
This pandemic has us by the baubles and at Christmas it gets to twist its grip and do permanent damage.
Of all the crappy gifts, lifting restrictions for Christmas is up there with socks and a pound store soap set.
Sturgeon is clearly uneasy but perhaps felt pressured by a collective hissy fit if England gets to play and we don’t.
The last thing we should do is hitch ourselves to the sledge of Bad Santa Boris and his evil populist elves.
For the most part Scotland has steered its own course, with mixed success, but now is not the time to give in to the spoiled brat in us all.
We have spent months forgoing personal events such as weddings, birthdays and funerals, which are of greater emotional consequence than the enforced conformity of Christmas celebrations.
Just because we have been good,
It’s a chance to go for big long walks rather than end up in a food coma in front of the telly
it doesn’t mean we now get everything we want from Santa.
And all for the sake of a Hallmark notion of a Christmas, far removed from reality for most.
There are lots of people out there who were quite glad of the excuse to forgo a “normal” Christmas.
As a kid, my parents would have gifted a kidney to have a Christmas without my nitroglycerin aunt.
She hid a half bottle in her handbag and carried it around like the Queen, whose haughty persona she adopted, the drunker she got.
Other families’ Christmases may look perfect on Facebook but behind the tinselled facade is often an exploding turkey of stress. And who is this all for?
The kids would be at home with their parents anyway and most grandparents would rather not play a parlour game of Russian roulette for the sake of festivities.
Instead of the Christian festival Christmas started out as, it has become a cult of commercialism and Covid may just have provided a intervention to break us free.
Many parents now plunged into unemployment and financial ruin, could have done with lowered expectations of a modest Christmas.
It’s a chance to get imaginative, to join each other in big long walks or in the garden, rather than in a food coma in front of the telly, like the rest of 2020.
If this pandemic is a type of war, it makes no sense to declare a unilateral ceasefire, in the face of an enemy which will continue to claim lives.
Now we are going to hit the shops when restrictions ease on December 11, like hyper kids who have gorged on a mountain of selection boxes.
The super spread will have happened before Christmas and similar to a maxed out credit card, we will be paying for it long after.
There will be resumption of restrictions at New Year and Sturgeon was apologetic when she broke the news.
Let’s hope January’s usual self flagellation isn’t compounded by a spike in deaths.
Yes, we want to say goodbye to the a crappy year but if we are all in this together, we need to do that apart as well.
A vaccine is within our sights and that is the greatest gift of all – so cheers to that and bah humbug to the rest.