We were literally entering a heatwave at the weekend, here in the UK, and on Friday I received an email to book a Christmas event. Christmas…! I’m sat here melting, trying to keep two small children from dehydrating, and companies want me to think six months down the line about Christmas!
No! I’m currently trying to survive, now, thank you very much! If you also hate consumerism, you’ve come to the right place!
I wish I could say I love Christmas, that it’s a great time for family and, don’t get me wrong, I do love spending it with my kids, but Christmas is a lonely time for me.
Christmas is a time of complication. A time of sadness. A time of epic messed-up family dynamics.
I don’t want to be the one who ruins everyone else’s fun because it’s a time of year that I struggle with the most.
So when I receive emails in June about the dreaded “C” word, another word comes to mind!
It’s bad enough that, working in retail, I’m constantly surrounded by the unavoidable festivities from September onward, let alone thinking that in order to create the perfect Christmas, I have to book an outlandishly expensive day out in June!
I think this is probably one of the hardest things I’ve had to contend with as a parent: that you have to be able to embrace the holidays, embrace the controlling consumerism that is the embodiment of modern-day societal expectations.
Like if you don’t go all out and lavishly throw money at Santa Claus, then you aren’t providing your children with the perfect memories.
Last year alone, just a measly chocolate a day from an advent calendar sent my four-year-old into a treat frenzy for months. She wanted more, more, more, and she was going to tantrum until she got it. Well, she tried, anyway.
Then just when you think you’ve got life back to normal again, they throw a chocolate-wielding bunny into the mix in April, and we’re back to square one, trying to rein in the treat frenzy once again.
My daughter is very perceptive for her age. She once said to me that she loves nice things because when she particularly likes the taste of something, she just wants to keep on tasting it.
Oh, but you’ve got to keep your kids healthy! You let them overindulge in treats—perish the thought! Yet they still keep shoving the holidays down our throats until we regurgitate their nonsense, all in aid of lining their pockets!
Gotta keep the rich rich and the poor poor!
Reflections
Okay, so as you can tell, the holidays hit a nerve with me. If you made it this far through my rant, thank you.
So I know for sure one of the first things my friend would say would be to chill out; why let yourself get so worked up about something that is so far away?
I think the hardest thing for me is that my immediate family (not including my children) is strained. It’s not possible to get everyone together, so no one gets together.
I mean, I’m in no way a party person, and large gatherings have always been an anxiety no-no for me, but somewhere deep down, I just wish my family life were simpler.
As much as I am usually filled with anxiety in the lead-up to Christmas, I do try my best to enjoy the day for my children so that they enjoy it.
With regard to the companies sending out the emails so early, I guess there are lots of reasons why. Maybe they need to plan for such things; they need to think about how many people they need to hire and what resources they’ll require, especially when the event, for example, is a 2-month-long affair. But surely they can get this information from previous sales forecasts.
I appreciate that some parents might love the fact that they can get part of the festive cost out of the way early. Some people probably even love anything Christmas, no matter the time of year, and that’s fine, too.
I just wish the companies wouldn’t put so much pressure on parents, and I know that, in a way, I am also putting pressure on myself, but it’s hard not to feel like you have to get swept up in it all. Like you’re somehow failing as a parent if you don’t provide all the magical experiences for your kids that everyone else is having.
Of course, I want my children to experience the same as everyone else and enjoy the magic, but we’re talking a ridiculous amount of money that parents feel pressured to spend just to celebrate one day.
One day that has barely anything to do with its religious origins anymore, and is more about how much these companies can capitalize on it for their own corporate greed.
I realise that my reflections today are still mostly rants, but sometimes I think just allowing yourself to get something out of your system is also a really good cathartic release.
The Ruminating Mum 