Birthdays become less appealing, and more depressing the older you get. Celebrate the big ones. Throw an awesome 18th birthday party and an even bigger 21st. Because that's the last one with all those good birthday-type feelings. Turning 22 makes you realise that every year you are just getting older, and that there's not much left to celebrate. Hell, I'll celebrate anyway, if only to detract from the nostalgia of how birthdays are when you're young. But feeling older just ain't what it used to be.
Christmas is much the same. But for quite different reasons. Christmas is something to be cherished when you are a kid, but has become something I have very few good feelings about. I don't hate Christmas per se. I like drinking from the moment I wake up, and I like the nice food, but that's about as far as my praise stretches. And the former doesn't come without criticism. What I do hate about Christmas is the way that we, Brits, celebrate it. I don't know exactly what the original meaning and traditions of Christmas are, but I'm pretty sure it isn't spending all the money you have on wrapping paper, a dead tree, an obscene amount of food and alcohol, and then spending all day in front of a TV screen. For two months or more every year we see tacky decorations cover buildings, the streets become crowded by masses of frustrated and hectic shoppers, and almost every store window becomes home to some gaudy festive display. And for what?
I sat on Christmas morning watching my younger sisters open hundreds of pounds worth of gifts, complain about most of them, and move on to the next, just like so many other children were doing across this country, and numerous others. And I couldn't help thinking about the greed. While we all opened our boxes and bags of colourful excess, and gorged ourselves on Christmas feasts, people elsewhere in the world continued to starve, and die, and live in poverty, whilst we remain oblivious. Christmas doesn't provide a relief for everyone. And all the months of preparation, and money spent, all the stress is, as my stepmother pointed out, for just a couple of hours, on one day out of 365.
I think it is safe to say now that the real reason for my distaste and dislike of Christmas stems almost entirely from my dislike of Capitalism. Like Valentine's Day, I think it's a way to pressure people into spending money, that many can barely afford in the current economic climate (I can barely afford to eat let alone buy gifts), all so the big corporations can boost their profits. And the fact that the Christmas decorations creep into the stores before Halloween in some instances just emphasises this season of consumerist excess.
Now I have had plenty of good Christmas's spent with my family. I am familiar with the arguments about getting time off work and spending time and money on the people you love and rarely get to see, and I can understand these reasons for liking Christmas as much as anyone else. But on a lower and more mundane level, it is all so on the nose. I enjoy walking around London without being barged about by angry Christmas shoppers, and without the addition of tacky lights and decorations. I enjoy hearing normal music in stores in December and not nauseating modern Christmas tunes on a loop (thanks Starbucks). And all the faux-Christmas cheer frankly just irritates me (Stop being so happy you freaks!) More than anything, I just don't see what all the fuss is about.
The Christmas season as it has come to be known, stretches on for around 8 weeks, and city life completely changes to accommodate it. But once all the wrapping paper is thrown out and all the food eaten, it's over, just like that. I have become bored with the routine of it. Spending Christmas in Berlin was good because it was a different country, with different traditions, and it was exciting. On Christmas day the public transport was running, the city centre was vibrant. People weren't sat at home watching bad TV and stuffing their faces. They were out at the markets with friends and family, ice skating, drinking, having fun with the rest of the city. Christmas in Britain is a victim of it's own traditions, traditions which don't appeal to me in the slightest.
And the month-long piss up continues on New Year's Eve, which is simply, the last chance to get shit-faced before making all those resolutions to change your habits. Now I'm not going to complain about parties. For New Year's Eve I went to Glow Ball/Squelcher at the Renaissance Rooms in Vauxhall, and had one of the best nights out of the year. I just don't really get it. It's a load of fuss and excitement over a clock hitting midnight; something that happens every night. It's a little strange to me, but when taken solely as an excuse to have a party or go to some amazing club it can't be a bad thing (unless the party is hugely disappointing, as has been the case for many NYEs of the past).
So 2010 is over. Let's be honest, it was a pretty shit year overall. I finished my degree and moved to London, only to be greeted by a Tory government, budget cuts, rising unemployment, rising VAT to name a few reasons. Cynical as always, I doubt that 2011 will be any better with the current political and economic circumstances, but we can hope. Can't we? My only resolution this year is to be more active. To keep up to date on the news by reading the paper, to take more approaches to actually finding a job because frankly, I am fucking sick of being broke, and to spend more time writing. Generally, I need to get out of this apartment more and enjoy living in London.
Goodbye 2010.
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