I get it, capitalism wants to make back the profit that two Christmases of Covid and then Coming Out of Covid has denied it. The whole Commercialmas thing, where the Christian Christmas symbols are left out in favour of new non-religious ones that encourage the buying presents for family and friends side of the festival, has been steadily on the rise during my lifetime. This year, it was especially noticeable. I feel we’ve reached a turning point where things like Angels and other characters of the Nativity have been dumped in favour of Santa, the Nutcracker and Gonks(?!). Even our New King Charles said he now presides over a multi-faith Kingdom. The recent Office of National Statistics news shows that Christianity is no longer the majority religion. While I’m not a Christian by any stretch, the unchallenged rise of Comericalmas worries me somewhat because it lies how marketeers and the shady money that pays for it all manipulate everyday reality. Also, it ditches some of the core messages of Christmases of my youth that, even as a Heretic, cheered me up. i.e. peace on earth and goodwill to men. Probably redundant since our Government is backing War in the Ukraine and fostering a xenophobic hatred towards refugees at home. Christmas is a good case study on how we all collectively are manipulated by conspiracies with their own agendas and happily play along.
But I’m here for fun, not the fear. Hence, as I navigated my way around the West’s Premier Religious Mid-Winter Festival, I took photos of stuff that I feel typify this spirit of #WrongChristmas (and posted them to Twitter and Farcebook using that hashtag).
It’s been long bemoaned that Christmas starts earlier and earlier each year. This year I think I saw and quickly ignored Christmas produce in the shops in late September.
This is the first instance of #WrongChristmas, taken early October – so the mince pies would not have been ediable come Christmas. Notice the big thing about its being a “Magical Christmas”. This is a big thing about Comericalmas, it swops out religious symbols (mainly mention of Jesus and the Navitivity) for ones from more general midwinter-folk lore.
But Wrong Christmas noticeably first reared its ugly head for me at our local George at Asda on November 15th.
#WrongChristmas @George, mainly Christmas tree decorations.
Misclanous wrong and more wrong Christmas bits from local shops.
Gonks deserve a special mention, in that the little buggers are everywhere now. An admitly cute little character (we got one when they first turned up from Sweden about five years ago), but now they are just too much.
Our Evelyn wanted me to to take her to the Christmas Markets in Manchester. We went about 10:30am and by 3:30pm it was loud and overwhelming. Partly in fact to the Christmas Markets which crowd up the walking only streets in the city centre, with a tat filled crappy version of the traditional German Christmas market. Total WRONG CHRISTMAS!
Garden centres make a large dollop of their money from their annual Christmas halls. Bent’s Guarden centre on the Manchester Ring road is no exception. It was also a hot bed of Wrong Christmas.
Of special mention, is this Star Wars Advent Calender. Because obviously, Star Wars is just a retelling of the Birth of Christ Story. Vader as King Herod? Ben Kenobi as a composite character representing the Three Kings? CP30 and R2-D2 as shepherds?
We took a mid-winter break on the sun drenched island of Lanzarote, a week before Christmas. I thought I could escape Wrong Christmas there, I was wrong.
Worked out on the plane back from Lanzarote where this sign was on the back of the chair in front of me, why there is so much #WrongChristmas this year. “They” put it there. A special hallucinogenic ingredient in popular drinks 😀
