With the editor on Christmas

Marzia Haenen writes:

Dear Editor. I fully agree with you and applauded when you bah-humbugged the practice of large chains flaunting Christmas wares already (Editor’s note, week ending 4 October). These have been steadily creeping into stores since September, and I would imagine that if you looked back a few years, it gets earlier and earlier each Christmas.

I love the Christmas season – I can’t wait to put up trees and get into the spirit of the Season, but it’s hard to work yourself up to this when it’s so commercial that you can receive, open and finish a Christmas cake three months before the event. What is Christmas anymore? It used to be a religious time, first and foremost. It was a time when those that were lucky could take a few days leave to relax, and when friends and family alike would take the time to visit and reflect on the year. Now, you’re faced with some nameless chocolate, cake or plastic reindeer when doing bread and milk shopping at the end of the day, and don’t know whether you’re being guilt-tripped into buying early (avoid the 24 December rush? Really? How rushed are we!) or despair at the fact that Christmas has become just another jaded, tarnished quaintness.

I won’t start on the Easter parade that starts just after New Years’, or the fact that we merge from one “not so special anymore” celebration into another so fast that the sales goods from Easter and Valentines’ day seem to arrive for Mothers’ Day’s super-early selling start… It’s all a little bit sad, isn’t it?