Christmas in the Age of Austerity

One minute you're wearing a tea-towel on your head, holding a toy sheep and shouting "While Shepherds Wash Their Socks" as loud as possible in the school Nativity while wondering a) what the fuck myrrh is and b) how the fuck you spell it. The next minute you're watching your parents hairs turn grey by presenting them with a wish list taller that you are with no item on it less that £100. I mean, Christmas is obscene. If I'm to be true to my political and moral beliefs as an anti-capitalist atheist, I should boycott the entire thing.

First "BUT" - concerning religion

It's in vogue to attack Christianity these days, and it's a very tempting target for my generation, having grown up in an age of science, technology and information. However, fundamentalist atheists (of which I know several) drive me more up the wall than evangelists (of which I know few), because while the latter may be idiots, the former are hypocrites. The Christmas Nativity really isn't that harmful. The virgin birth is speculative but I maintain that when you're five years old you're more concerned about what kind of pot you put a "myrrh" in, than who Mary might have been special-cuddling.

Christmas falls four days after the winter solstice and I KNOW that all the Christian festivals fall at the same time as the pagan ones but why get all possessive? Everybody is celebrating, after all. Father Christmas himself is part personification of the Christians' goodwill and celebration at the birth of Jesus, and part representation of Odin riding in to celebrate the rebirth of the sun as the days start getting longer. We still call Christmas "Yuletide" in direct reference to the winter festivals that pre-date the Christians. Wassailing and carolling go hand in hand too, one wishing a fruitful harvest in the new year, and the other wishing merry Christmas.

Both are celebrations of rebirth and it strikes me the losers here are the atheists, the non-believers, the smart-arses who are far too grounded to go in for fanciful traditions. Humbug.

Second "BUT" - concerning capitalism

If I pass a shop playing "Here Comes Santa Claus" and happen to catch the lyric, "he doesn't care if you're rich or poor cause he loves you just the same", I may fly into a wild rage. That is a mean lie to tell little children - Santa very much does care if you're rich or poor. That's why the kids with big houses and three cars and two parents get better presents that the kids who live in high-rises with a bus pass and one parent. Santa is a capitalist concept. The more money you invest in Santa, the more gifts he gives you. If you've got no nothing to give him, you'll be lucky if his magic reindeer shit down your chimney.

Mum warned me in advance of an "austerity-themed Christmas", and I had a vision of her carefully distributing a single sprout and five drops of gravy between four of us at the dinner table. Austerity is something that we, as a family, are used to. Mum has always enforced a despotic regime of frugality and cut-backs. We don't do glittering piles of presents, or struggling home with countless shopping bags, we certainly don't do Santa - Mum felt it was more worth my while to believe in tight household budgets than elf factories in the North Pole. The best part about being used to having nothing is the inclination to share what little one has. I find consumerism harder to forgive at Christmas than religion, but giving gifts is nice, just as giving in general is nice. I've not been able to afford gifts for years but I was once a master giver of presents: it was gratifying to learn this year that a glow-in-the-dark Lego monster I gave four Christmases ago still exists on the recipient's bedroom desk.

Even now that I'm perpetually skint, I'll always sub my poorer friends for beer, and I'll always make the arduous journey to the wrong side of the river to see my friends who can't afford London transport. Instead of gifts, my housemate and I gave each other a whole day of good company and window shopping, and a free carol service. The only thing we bought was a pack of mince pies that we ate under the Christmas tree in Trafalgar Square. 

So, to recap. If I am to remain true to my political and moral beliefs as an anti-capitalist atheist, I should boycott Christmas. But I like Christmas, and I am able to get over the Christianity and the orgy of consumerism:

"BECAUSE"

Christmas doesn't have to be about Jesus, or gift-giving. Anyone who's read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, or wept into their mince-pies watching It's a Wonderful Life, or knows about the Christmas truce in the trenches of northern France in 1914 knows what Christmas is about ... the inherent goodness of human beings. Anybody who can't understand that doesn't deserve a Merry Christmas from me.