This time of year's tough when you’re on a low income as every shop window and TV advert is
pushing the materialistic manifesto, making you feel you should have spent more, or that you’re somehow failing if you’re family doesn’t fit
the standard mould.
For years
Christmas has felt like a pastime that doesn’t apply to me. This is due to a whole host of reasons and habits that have formed
over time and are hard to shake. For one I hate enforced jollity, and social
situations practically bring me out in a rash. I also loathe the pressure and
expectation the festive season places on you, whether you like it or not;
however much you plough your own furrow in life, there’s something about the ITV, greeting-card nature of Christmas that makes you feel you haven't done enough - or your family isn't perfect enough - to make the grade.
I think the
problem stems from how ever-present Christmas clichés have become; at best,
the saturation wears you down, and at worst it compounds loneliness; even the
most independent person can wind up feeling excluded from society when the media spends so much time pushing the over-exaggerated image of the perfect family unit; plenty of us don't have kids, partners or much money, yet the world around us suggests not having them is plain weird.
One thing the advertising onslaught doesn't seem to take into account is loss; so many of us
mourn missing friends and relatives at this time of year, yet family tableaus surround us at every angle, reminding us of what we don’t have without tact.
The trick is to
not be swept up in all the stuff that’s just for show; I’d much rather invest my
energy in being positively motivated all year round than just applying it to the
Christmas period; to care should be the norm and not the exception.