We went through a time when it was fashionable to talk about stress
as in “She’s very stressed” or “completely stressed out.” Refreshingly the actress Judi Dench remarked that she was tired of hearing it, there was good stress and bad stress, good and bad sense in every term. There are all sorts of other terms that I would use instead. As soon as a word or a term goes into common usage across the board, I look at it sideways. Words change in time and context. And like everything else, our opinions of words range from “words have power”
to “talk’s cheap” with all the variants in between.
We are a month away from the big midwinter festival, call it what you will. My hairdresser (40s) remarked yesterday that she didn’t want a month spent building up to Christmas, the anticipation was maddening, marketing coercion lamentable and what had that to do with Christmas ?
Whether you believe in it or not, Christmas is a story we need. That’s part of its magic. As far back as you go in human history, there are stories with these components: renewal in the dark days of winter, a magical child, miraculous birth, a humble so admirable human father figure, purity, spiritual apparitions to simple people, visitors from far away who recognized a sign – The Sign -captivatingly a star.
And I am tired of hearing the Victorians simultaneously blamed and admired for the Christmas glut. Because glut it is and a long way from where the story began.
At best, Christmas balances out between half you like and half you could do without. Too often, it comes trailing obligation and an absolute inability to move on resulting in stultifying artificial interaction. Once again, there is good and bad in this.
If you really don’t get on with your family who are as out of tune as broken bells,
you can either manage a couple of days of observance and civility or you really have to declare “not this year “ preferably by October and stick to it. As the last survivor of my natal family where there was pain as well as joy at Christmas, I cherish the good bits, shelve the rest and reinvent for myself with the aid of the bits I love. This year I found the courage to decline a neighbour who wants to fill up the days with underemployed bodies. Not mine. And asked “what are you doing for Christmas ?” I say “As little as possible (adding under my breath, with a good heart).”
But if financial insecurity continues, this will be the last year of cards
– too expensive to buy let alone send. Every second named writer will be opining about the year of “Christmas stress” – buying, cooking, dressing, drinking, I’d saying “behaving” not because you believe in it but because you don’t know what else to do. And that old cry about “everybody else does”. So ? Be the first to do it different. And don’t confuse sending cards to a few people you’d like to remember with sending them because you “should”.
And my early Christmas story is the two young (20s) nephews of an old friend with a family every bit as difficult and dissonant as the bells I referred to earlier who is making Christmas for them, their mother (her favourite sister), her mother (my age) and an old friend. And the boys abjured “Somewhere to come, all together, food and drink and warm – it’s not about presents.”
Bless them, let’s have a few more like that.
Money has gone mad – £29 for a nailbrush ? £135 for a hairbrush ? Hiked up and sold to you as a “must have.” What about the people who simply haven’t got it ? Harder and harder to find anything small and pretty and inexpensive. The under two foot Christmas tree I so enjoyed doubled in price: keep it. I could rant about Christmas food because I don’t like most of it and I don’t buy slavishly.
And I was shocked earlier in the week when after God knows what in the way of other people’s troubles, two friends spoke to me very firmly about stress in the aftermath of mini strokes. And I listened, I understood the meaning of the word.
Annalog 