Reiki Music. Video Marketing

The 12 milestones of Christmas.

Merry Thursday!

Being British it annoys me that I can’t say Merry Christmas and be PC, but there are many people for whom Thursday has no relevance. I am even an atheist, and yet I have no problem with people celebrating Christmas. It’s great that they can celebrate anything. Kiboshing celebrations is the work of the devil! (If only I believed in him.)

New Years Eve, that seems to be something more pagan, more of a landmark event. The start of a new year. But I guess even that only became important, after the “calendar” was invented.

Did cavemen know about the cycle of months and years? Or did they just know when the cold season was coming, because it was erm. cold? As the seasons drift, in these decades, their system may be somewhat more appropriate and reliable. It snows when it snows (now usually February or march in the UK) and doesn’t mean it is Christmas or December.

Christmas has become incredibly commercialised and obese. Marketeers must think the public is very unobservant as pre-Christmas, everything is in short supply and more expensive.

Intel (one if the computer part CPU manufacturers) don’t release, or announce, their new processor till Jan/Feb, so that all the old stock PCs can be flogged off first, easily. Maybe they don’t think we have noticed that they always bring out a new generation in Jan/Feb?

And also we know that 24 hours after Christmas day, boxing day, ENDLESS sales and discounts suddenly appear instantly.

But the need for a gift “ON THE DAY” means we are generally held to ransom.

I remember one parent saying to their children, “you can have 1 game on Christmas, or you can have 2 games on Boxing day, which would you prefer?” Even a 12 year old can work out that sort of logic.

But as nice as they are to give and receive, I don;t really believe in most Christmas presents. If someone needs clothes, or a kitchen appliance, if I could I would just buy it for them, WHEN they needed. 365 days a year.

Why would we expect our children to walk around naked, just because it isn’t Christmas day yet?

Yep, taken to that extreme it is nonsense. Clothes, necessities, quality of life improvements, aren’t really “gifts”. They are commercial excuses.

To me, a gift is something “pointless” and “worthless” and something the person wouldn’t normally have.

OK so by that definition, it could be something they personally couldn’t afford. And I guess that works. But why wait to Christmas to give it to them? Is Christmas day a day for charity when gifts (donations) to the less fortunate, are more politically correct?

But we don’t wait to Christmas day to send food and medicine and water aid, to disaster stricken nations. We don’t wait until December the 25th to help them.

So is Christmas now a budgetary restraint?

Christmas should be about the joy of GIVING and not receiving. That is our first “milestone”

And we know that the “pleasure” in giving is seeing the reaction and the potential ongoing benefit that the gift will bring to that persons life. The quality of life improvement. The happy lifelong “memory”. That’s probably milestone 2.

Imagine the life joy it could bring if you got your first ever paint or sculpting set, or first ever musical instrument, or a maths book/toy/game, and it uncovered the hidden talent in someone to become gifted in that area.

Wouldn’t that be an amazing gift?

But yes of course, one with many disappointments as it would be hard to find and continue each year.

And is that really a gift? Shouldn’t we try to develop those talents in everyone ALL YEAR ROUND? Isn’t that the utopia concept in education?

But what happens if you can’t “afford” to give expensive presents, or even “bought” presents. A 4 year old has no income. Does that mean that a drawing they did, or a “Christmas hug” was any less valuable than a $5000 pair of shoes? Which would give you longer life time pleasure as a memory do you think?

I think we have another milestone here. Milestone 3 is that the “cost” of the present is irrelevant. The value of the gift, may be totally unrelated.

I think you can see where I am going with this…

If you spent all that money you spent on presents for others, on yourself, you’d probably have everything you ACTUALLY wanted on your own. So the purpose of presents isn’t to ultimately give and get what you/they ultimately want. It’s a really inefficient way of stocking your larder, to let other people GUESS what you like.

So Christmas is about GIVING, and not receiving. We should know that. And in reality it can’t be about equipping, or furnishing, or tooling up, someone else with gadgets and lifestyle appliances and things they can’t afford to buy themselves.

So what are presents about then?

Well I think te answer, as always, is in the question. “What is the purpose of a gift?”

A gift is really a “token”. A symbol. A sign that you thought about them and cared. Why houldn;t baking someone an apple pie, be a really stonking present? Why does it have to have a $200 price tag?

Also if gifts are priceless, and largely pointless (ie not an essential that the person can’t afford themselves), then it takes a lot of pressure off, and even poorer people can afford to give presents. Lots of them

Because then the gift is really TIME and the THOUGHT. That you THOUGHT of that other person. And that you cared enough to remember them, and do something for them. Whether it was baking an apple pie, or just writing a letter.

Isn’t that the best gift of all? To show someone else that you care about them!

What does “money” and price tickets have to do with that?

Will people stop giving expensive presents. No of course not.

Will it stop being cool to get lots of free stuff. Nope probably not either.

Does it impress me the slightest when a “company” sends me Christmas greeting, including their opening hours and order sales line reminder, absolutely not. It’s just another marketing contact opportunity. Sure maybe some of them actually are grateful for my business in the previous year. Just a bit hard to tell!

Does it impress me when the same company who SOLD ME x y and z before Christmas, in limited supply, with full prices, now trying to flog me off their dead stock at 30% to 70% off, just 24 hours later, impress me? Absolutely not.

Do stores who enslave their staff to open at 7am on boxing day sales, impress me? Absolutely not! Who the hell needs to shop at 7am on boxing day? I feel very sad for those staff, who had to cut their 1 day Christmas day off, short, to get up at 5am to open up for the sales. I appreciate life must go on (nurses, fire, police, cow milkers, farmers, etc.) but I really think there is something wrong with this picture.

I mean commercially and economically, what happens here? They buy on boxing day. Do they come back the day after boxing day and buy again? I think not! SO could they waited till Saturday to buy it and the store still got the sale? I wasn’t great at maths at school, but I think so!

SO what do I hope for at Christmas?

I hope, despite what ever else happens, that we, that I, remember the real value in Christmas.

The greatest gift is in giving, OK. But the even greater gift is that you remembered to care enough about someone to let them know. I don’t care what the gift is. Even a phone call. The price tag certainly should not matter.

Free stuff is great. Charity if great. Why wait till 1 day only, to give essentials? I think using Christmas day as a budgetary restriction, just sucks. It just isn’t “festive”. Money and Christmas just do not mix.

I am even worse at history than most other things I am bad at (which is a lot), but AFAIK one of the original winter festivals, around Christmas, and nothing to do with the birth of some guy called Jesus, or not, was about it being COLD. Bloody cold. And food being scarcer in winter. Maybe it would happen on the 25th, or maybe in November. It would happen when it was needed.

So tribes would “GATHER” and make a festival out of scraps of food. They’d all pull together, so EVERYONE could eat.

It might not be a gift by my own definition, is it was an “essential” to eat and stay warm, but I really FEEL that that is WAY MORE what Christmas should be about. Gathering. Sharing. Remembering others. Helping others. Showing you care.

YES I think the ultimate Christmas milestone is, “Christmas means showing you care”.

“Peace on earth and good will to all people”.
What ever happened to that as a Christmas message? And is that why it is OK to war on every other day other than Christmas? See what I mean about giving essentials as a budgetary restriction?

It’s Christmas. Show you care! It’s (almost) free to do! And wrapping is optional…

The Twelve Milestones of Christmas:

I mean to put a recap of the 12 milestones of Christmas here, but erm. it’s Christmas… so maybe in the boxing day sales

1.

12. Christmas means showing you care.

Comments are closed.