make-believe.org

Christ, again, already

Today is Friday the 12th of November. Two days ago, they filled the Melbourne City Square with gargantuan Christmas decorations.

Today is the 12th of November.

Taking this to herald the official onset of Christmas in Melbourne—an assumption many people, particularly retail workers, would consider conservative—we must recognise the consequence: this year the festive season will last for a month and a half. That is, an entire 45 days out of a possible 365 are taken up with the celebration of whatever it is Christmas signifies in the present age. Extrapolating, one concludes that—if the current margin does not blow out—eight point one percent of our whole lives are Christmas.

This is clearly oppressive.

Just think, if we could possibly compress the yuletide, how much more wondrous, how much more magical, it would be. I swear I would sing those carols lustily, in full voice, if I only heard them a few days each year. (As it stands I scurry from any store that plays them.)

I believe we should set the target at approximately 1 percent of our lives, with a further .5 percent given over to the associated tasks—like buying and wrapping gifts, marinating the turkey, etc. This gives us a generous 5 days of potent, heady Christmas, freeing up a full 360 other days in which to get stuff done unharried by interminable carols or ridiculous oversized baubles or cloying and wholly false goodwill.

Joseph | 12 Nov 2004