Too early to tangle with jarring jingle jangle

Liz Breslin
Liz Breslin

Christmas has become a bloated, greedy, gaudy celebration, Liz Breslin writes.

If there's one thing guaranteed to rile me up more than Daniel Craig in a polo neck shirt while he's supposed to be looking all sexy and bowtied and white-suited and Bondesque, it's Christmas in November. Going shopping is torturous at the best of times without being expected to address a seasonal occasion months before it is actually occasional at all.

As far as I can tell, there are very few reasons to think about Christmas already at this time of year. These include, and are probably limited to, adding to a pot of savings to ensure the financial outlay is not heart-attackingly onerous, making a Christmas cake far enough in advance that it can mature yummily, boozily, and meeting last-date-deadlines for sending meaningful bits of tat overseas. Oh, and ordering ham.

Honestly, otherwise there is no need whatsoever to regale retail customers with Hark the Herald and Jingle Bell Rock. Yes they're catchy feel-good tunes with heart-warming messages, but really? Is retail music science that simplistic that if we hear carols we'll suddenly think, ''Hey, while I'm in this annoyingly tinselly shop listening to these jangling tunes I'm just now going to buy a thing I didn't know I even wanted just in case I can stuff it in someone's stocking!?'' No. Or maybe Yes. So help us all.

If you need to learn Christmas carols before the fact, join a choir, all right? As far as the rest of it goes, if you want to be organised early, you'll already have a plan. Surely. And if not, then all that shiny Noel stuff just causes more and more seasonal stress.

Traditionally, Christmas trees were not even put up until noon on Christmas Eve and then kept up until Twelfth Night. Hence the twelve days of Christmas. After Christmas. All we have now is the run-up 12 weeks before and the run-off right after into Boxing Day sales. Which leaves me shaken and very churningly, dirtily stirred.

Christmas has become a bloated, greedy, gaudy celebration. If it was my Happy Birthday they were going on about miles before that day, in that way, it would make me very sad. We're all sad about it, right? The people who have to stand in the stores with David Bowie's Drummer Boy on repeat (epically cool as Bowie is), the people who have to duck in and out of those stores with their staunch-against-commercialisation mental armour on, the owners of the stores who have to shift the stock so that they, too, can have a Peace on Earth Christmas.

I know, I know, bah humbug, pa ru pa pum pum and all that. And yet I love it as a celebration. To start with, I look forward to the annual dragging out of homemade Advent calendars. Which is still more than a week away. Still. Stuffing them with little plastic or sugary forgettables. And advent, note, means ''coming'', not ''so stressed I'm over it already''.

If you're going to go the full extreme of pre-Christmas celebration, you might consider that some Christian factions fully embrace the traditional ''Nativity Fast'', starting on November 14 or 15 (depending on which strand you're into) and all about penance and abstinence until Christmas. A bit like Ramadan or yoga retreats, the purpose is mindfulness and something bigger than self and nothing to do with big red ho ho hos all the way to the bank.

Otherwise it's only like some massive international conspiracy with bad humour and worse sweaters. Or is that just James Bond? Hah. Yes, we should be thinking about Other Important Things now. For at least a month. Sunshine. Remembering to water strawberries. Swimming outdoors. Loving our neighbours. Peace, always. Oh, and ordering ham.

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