Have you noticed that Christmas sneaks up on you? When you were little, there was a real sense of anticipation surrounding Christmas, and all the decorations and advertisements only heightened this feeling. But as the Christmas Creep (in which advertising for Christmas becomes earlier and earlier) advances (soon we'll have Christmas adverts straight after the post-Easter sales finish), I am finding myself immune. I have special built in Christmas blinkers.
Christmas is different when you get older. It's not all about the presents (but they are still fun. Don't stop giving me presents!); it's about seeing your family (and spending a fortune in petrol doing so as you drive all over the city); it's about sharing time, gifts and food with your loved ones (and working out how to cook a turkey!?!); and it's about relaxing after the Christmas rush. Isn't that mad? We find that we need the holiday to relieve ourselves from the insanity pre-empting the holiday!
I suggest that some of this insanity is due to the anaesthetising effect of the Christmas Creep. For months there have been Christmas decorations, Christmas sales, Christmas carols in the stores. For months I have been ignoring them. It was only when I coincidentally watched a Christmas episode of a DVD that I realised Christmas was only two weeks away and I hadn't even put up any decorations. I felt so Scrooge-like! Nick has been feeling Christmas-blinkered in much the same way, except that in his case he hasn't had time to finish his Christmas shopping ( I split gift shopping with my siblings, so we have to find a time when we can all shop together, which leads to pretty good organisation to make it happen, preferably early).
This is the seventh Christmas since Nick and I got together; it's the first Christmas we will share in the same city as each other. We've been planning to have dinner together Christmas Eve, and then see friends or Nick's sister. That said, we hadn't made any tangible plans until we realised Christmas was fairly well upon us, resulting in a mad rush to get food (an enormous turkey roll, what will we do with an enormous turkey roll, how do I cook that anyway?!?) and invite people to spend some time with us. Don't even mention the food I haven't yet bought to take to various family gatherings on Christmas day. For all the blatant "Buy this" lines, I have bought very little at all. I have not thought about Christmas sufficiently to organise myself, and now Christmas is a hassle!
Perhaps the Christmas Creep still works on kids, although I doubt it is very effective. Sure, the aim is to make children nag for gifts and sweets. But Christmas advertising used to also make you excited that Christmas, and the associated celebrations and school holidays, were near. When this starts three months before-hand, anticipation can't last. You become blase. Christmas Creep is ruining the thrilling atmosphere of Christmas, and both encouraging and pandering to the me generation who want everything now. These kids don't fully comprehend the joy of sneaking up to the Christmas tree to try and work out which presents are for you. They've been demanding presents for weeks, and it's become boring.
Maybe I'm just getting old. Maybe I am really becoming a 'Bah humbug' kind of person. But, then again, there's a present for me under our 'tree'. It's soft, with a strange harder section I can't work out. Maybe the anticipation of Christmas is still there, after all.
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