Saying I can’t stand Christmas gets me accused of being a grinch, a grumpy old sod, and any number of other things, but balls to the lot of it. If there is one thing I really hate, it is being told to have a good time and looked upon as some kind of defective scrooge if I’d rather leave it all alone. The more I get funny looks, the more I feel the urge to lock myself in the house and come out again in the new year.
Participation is not mandatory.
I feel like I have said this all before, and that is because I have. This shit repeats itself every year, just like the fuss over the Christmas number one, just like all the Bible bashers whining on about the secularisation of Christmas (and for the fifteen millionth time, it was a traditional folk festival for thousands of years long before Christianity re-branded it), just like cloying M&S adverts and just like the Boxing Day hangover.
It’s all so crap. Sorry, longer and cleverer words fail me. Deck the halls with bowels of Holly, or whatever the hell it is, spare me. Leave Holly’s bowels alone. As for conspicuous overconsumption, that’s par for the course here in Siem Reap and has been since I got here, so I feel no desire to up the ante even further. At least in Cambodia I have been spared seeing Kerry Katona on TV every day hovering over plates of mass-produced bacon-flavoured salmon lips in puff pastry, or gargantuan turkeys that taste like packing material.
I was Santa yesterday, and I will be again this afternoon. An occasion when I am actually encouraged to let my gut hang out is always going to be good, but wearing red velvet trousers, fur-lined boots and a beard is not when the sun is beaming down and the temperature is in the 30s. The children love it, and for them it is simply a party, with sweet things, gifts, and fuss. To be fair, this could happen to them on any other day of the year and often does.
Imagine a world without Christmas. Would you still get together with loved ones when you had the time? Would you still buy gifts or tell people you loved them? Would you still eat well, especially when the days were cold and dark and you needed comfort and sustenance? Would you still say a prayer to your god, or in the absence of a god, express your appreciation for the world that supports you, and would you help those less fortunate than yourself? I’d like to think that the answer to all of the above is yes.
So regardless of Christmas, I want to say to my family and closest friends that I love you very much and I am thankful beyond words to have you in my life. I miss you at home and I will see you soon. To all the people I have met here in Cambodia I want to say that I have had more fun with you and enjoyed being with you than I could ever have hoped. And finally, I want to say how happy I am to live in a world that still manages to be so beautiful, varied and fascinating, despite all of the mediocrity, fundamentalism, terrorism, melting ice caps, George W Bush and Iceland adverts.
Have a good day.
Also here