KEY POINTS:
It seems they are predicting the worst, gloomiest, skintest Christmas for decades. I suppose we're all supposed to think: "Oh super!" and start droning on sanctimoniously about the evils of conspicuous spending and how, for too long, we've been riddled with consumerist greed, and weren't we all so much better off in the olden days with little more than a fresh orange and some monkey nuts in our stockings?
Well, maybe I'm a bit common, but all I could think was, to hell with that, I'm not returning to the bad old days of golf-ball soaps and crushed talc and flannel sets. This year, of all years, has been tough - my house is worth less than I bought it for and I've spent the last 10 months wondering whether I'm going to end up living in a cardboard box in the gutter, feeding my children spiders. So forget about downsizing - spend some money on me and then spend some more!
However, just as some people like to get their festive shopping done and dusted by November, Christmas-bashing seems to have started before the tinsel has even hit the shops.
One can understand why businesses are alarmed; with consumer spending slowing, banking in crisis and rents rising, retailers have a right to be concerned. But this doesn't quite explain why we're being encouraged, nay commanded, to embrace our inner Grinch. Well, I say Grinch - the Grinch at least stole Christmas; there are some who just do their mealy-mouthed best to spoil it. Isn't this a mistake?
Maybe I'm in the minority but I like Christmas, in all its forms. The family Christmas, the solo Christmas, even the "Oh my God, why am I working?" Christmas. Just as it was traditional, down my way, to end the week with a life-affirming knees-up, ending the year in a similar fashion just seems right.
A shame, then, that the global economic meltdown seems to have given those who despise Christmas the perfect excuse, a kind of moral Excalibur with which to smite down the plebeian masses who - miracle of miracles - might still, against the odds, be quite capable of looking forward to Christmas.
Maybe that's why it's so irksome to think we're all doomed to have the worst, gloomiest, skintest Christmas ever. It feels a bit like being cursed by the Chattering Class Fairy. We've all met them; we may even have been them. People who spend the best part of the winter months endlessly intoning about how the whole thing has become "too commercialised".
Their implication is that everyone else is too thick to have noticed. Or perhaps we did, but decided to make peace with it, especially parents, realising that there can be no greater modern pleasure than festively flicking through catalogues, marvelling at the fab tat you can buy kids these days. This is the problem with the anti-Christmas lobby. They have some good points, but ruin their case with their life-sapping attitudes. They also prove what seems to be an almost unbreakable rule: namely, that the poorer you are, the more fun you're more determined to have.
The richer you are, the more fun you're determined to stop. One wonders what their definition of over-commercialisation is. For the vast majority, their wildest festive dreams probably already peak at a carton of Belgian chocolates, some presents for the kids and a few "Mummy and Daddy drinks" in the fridge.
For people like this, the terminally downsized, what could you possibly take away - their paper hats at Christmas lunch? However, the most compelling reason for not getting sucked into any worthy Christmas drear is that it doesn't make sense. When you think about it, surely the only sane response to the filthy year we've all had is the biggest, stupidest party any of us can afford.
A chance to remember (loved ones, close escapes, reasons to be grateful), but also a chance to forget (2008). So pull a cracker and stop moaning - Santa frowns upon party-pooping.
- OBSERVER
