This post is inspired by an experience from last Wednesday morning, as I was driving into Dudley, past the Quality Hotel. I have never been to this particular Quality Hotel, so cannot vouch for its quality, but I have driven past it many times, and they frequently have banners outside advertising deals for the next 'special occasion' - Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Easter, you get the idea. Last Wednesday they were advertising Father's Day. Fair enough. But along the bottom of the banner, in largish letters, were the words 'Now Taking Bookings For Christmas.'
A couple of years ago, I was outraged when going out for a pub lunch on 1st September and finding a flyer for Christmas bookings on the table. 'That means Christmas lasts FOUR MONTHS,' I ranted. 'That's one-third of my YEAR dominated by Christmas.' Last Wednesday was the 9th of April. It seems that Christmas now has the same gestation period as a chimpanzee.
I have no problem with Christmas as such. It's an important festival in the Christian calendar, and as this country has, broadly speaking, been heavily influenced by Christian culture for a millennium and a half or so, it is bound to dominate life for a while. And naturally some people choose to spread their Christmas shopping over a long period, or make plans for holidays well in advance to ensure they can get their first choice. But couldn't we keep most of the pre-Christmas stuff - the advertising, the decorations, the hideous soundtracks in shops - to, say, the month leading up to the festival itself?
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When out and about, taking in nature, being really healthy and so on, I have to remind myelf that robins (that is, the birds) are not fundamentally Christmas birds. That's a Christmas card association. Whereas, when I saw a reindeer the other day, my involuntary 'F*** me! Santa's a Stokie!' was apt.
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