This is a light-hearted look at some of the silly things which happen around Christmas time every year.
Have you started making plans or did you wait until July this year?
Are you going to celebrate Christmas because you have some idea of what it is supposed to be about or because lots of other people do it and they look like they might be having a good time? Or, are you religious in any way and have a real attraction to worshipping a fat guy in red with fur trimmings, bells and a questionable attraction to reindeer?
Maybe you’ve got kids and you like to see them having a good time? Are you going to provide them with that good time by spending way beyond your budget, paying it back until next Christmas, and arguing about it behind closed doors with your beloved for the next six months? Just so long as junior has that new robo-shoot’em-video-Ybox-mega-crap-that-lasts-two-weeks to open on Christmas day.
I probably am. I get hooked into it every year.
This year, some shops I go into have had Christmas sell-offs from last year at half-price since July. They might say it’s stock clearance but don’t be fooled. It’s a pre-sales, pre-sale to get your head turning toward pre-Christmas. We are now in pre-Christmas because it’s September and the retail industry wants it’s turkey now, and tomorrow and all the way through to January.
In October, Christmas arrives for real. Don’t go thinking Christmas is on December 25th. It’s not. Official dates are October 1st right through to February 28th. ~December 25th is a blip, an inconvenience because it intereferes with shopping season. And it is around this particualr day that we ask our kids to accept it as something special, a day to be elevated because it’s not like the rest of the year. That has to be a crock don’t you think? How can they possibly elevate one little day out of that four month blur of sales and marketing madness?
Even this blog is an attempt to sell my Silly Christmas kids CD a full three months before the special day and a full who-knows-how-long before the CD itself is completed.
Now don’t get me wrong. I respect marketing and sales as completely legitimate and essential cornerstones of business and business is what keeps us all alive and breathing on this wonderful planet. But I can’t stand the pressure to get my stuff ready three months before it’s supposed to be topical. I’m singing about Rudolph pooing in the house and it’s only September. I’m struggling to believe myself and put the honesty into the songs. Know what I mean?
Why couldn’t I wait to do this until December 1st? Because the big boys of the Universal Mega Multi-Billion Dollar Christmas Stuff industry have had their Christmas stuff for this year manufactured and ready for the last two years in their gargantuan holding bays. Talk about creating the future eh? I’ve got to be there to nip my 0.0000001% of the market.
Why? Cos I’m a musician with a family and we’ve gotta eat Christmas dinner, that’s why.
Anyway. Just thought I’d ramble a blog out on this topic. Welcome any posts about Silly Christmas and look forward to some interesting noos. Oh, by the way, I don’t want moaning and groaning and cynicism and unpleasant posts on this blog so please, it’s Silly, not sick Christmas and there’ll be a kind of end-of-my-sanity as-a-parent feel to the whole thing so if you want to make serious complaints about the nature of Christmas please go do it elsewhere. We’re just gonna discuss some of the silly stuff that happens in connection with Christmas. That’s all.
Oh yeah, I’ll let you know about the development of my kids Silly Christmas CD as we go – it’ll be an mp3 ho ho ho.
