Why it’s better to be a Scrooge than a Rooney this Christmas
NOT even the end of November and, already, the Christmas pressure is on, on, on. As usual, Coleen Rooney has made a strong opening move with her annual family Christmas card. This year, it features a photograph of her four apple-cheeked sons, cute as buttons in their reindeer pyjamas, posing amid a cosy festive scene. Beat that, mums and dads!
For Coleen, multi-millionaire footballer husband Wayne and their lucky, lucky children, Christmas is a time of excess; of giving but, most of all, receiving the best that their wealth can buy.
Whatever Kai, Klay, Kit and baby Cass want Santa to leave under the tree, you can bet it will be there. With bows on.
yet it is not like that for everyone. This week, a father of five appealed for donations on online fundraising platform GoFundme in order to give his family a good Christmas. Ben Buckley, from hull, said he needed help after having to reduce his hours at work when his wife became ill during her latest pregnancy — their baby is now two weeks old.
The 32-year-old warehouse worker asked for £2,000 — which was quickly raised by 132 generous strangers. Bless them, every one.
he is grateful, but not everyone is happy about the situation.
mr Buckley has been abused by the usual foam-flecked mob of online lunatics, while his stepfather called his actions ‘begging’ and was embarrassed. ‘I wish he had spoken to me first,’ he said, revealing that he had financially helped out the family a while ago.
As the season of goodwill approaches, one wants to be kind. Certainly, many of us would rather donate to someone like Ben and his kids than some faceless international charity whose executives pay themselves six-figure salaries.
yet I can’t help but wonder if £2,000 is not a bit . . . high?
We can’t all be Rooneys, after all. And plenty of families who are in better financial positions than the Buckleys will not be spending anything like that amount of money on their family Christmas.
MEANWhILE — call me ‘mrs Scrooge’ — but why have another child if you cannot afford the ones you already have? Surely that is just sailing blindly into more financial trouble, when perhaps a bit of thought, planning and restraint might have averted further calamity. It seems wrong to just do what you want, while appealing to others for financial support.
however, mr Buckley is reportedly a devoted dad and not a bigspender; his wish for his children to have a nice time after their difficult year is both understandable and commendable. And you can see the dilemma in which he and other scrimping parents find themselves. In years gone by, children were happy with whatever they got; an orange, a sixpence, meccano, a skipping rope.
In contrast, children today are bombarded with adverts featuring the latest toys and computers — they know to the last gigabyte exactly what they are missing out on. And to compound their misery, they only have to look online to see the have Toys boasting to the have Not Toys about their latest haul of fun goodies.
however, is crowdfunding really the answer to the heartbreaking toy gap? many families struggle at this time of year and, while it might work this time for the Buckleys, what about next Christmas and the one after that? And what message does it send to their children, who might also be embarrassed when they find out what happened?
Surely, in the long run, it is better to live within your means, however difficult that might be.
To try not to be influenced by, or envious of, the gasping wealth or relative affluence of others.
It’s hard, I know, not to dwell on the unknown British ticket-holder who won £76.3 million in the Euromillions draw earlier this month. Or Denise Coates, the Bet365 boss and her £265 million salary. Or, indeed, the lavish life of the freewheeling Rooneys and their little boys, a cosseted quartet who will never want for anything material in their lives.
Christmas puts struggling parents under intolerable pressure in a mercenary world that’s warped us all. yet the truth is that, ultimately, both the Rooney kids and the Buckley brood will be happy just having their parents with them and being loved. Although they might not realise that for many years to come. merry Christmas, everybody!