December days: Commercialization of religious festivals

[liv]

silveradept prompted me with the commercialization of religious festivals (the Charlie Brown Christmas cartoon could be used as a springboard, if you like.)

I must admit, my first thought in response to this prompt was, we should only have such problems! Nobody ever commercializes my religious festivals, because people basically have no idea what my religious festivals even are. So I do feel sympathy for religious Christians who are constantly bombarded with annoying advertising when they want to be keeping a religious observance, but it's not really something I've ever experienced.

Equally I'm afraid I haven't seen the Charlie Brown cartoon, and I will look out for it, but I haven't got time to go and find it now to be able to comment on it. The thing is, jack is an atheist from a vaguely Christian culture, and I am Jewish, so what we decided to do about Christmas was to set aside a day to do things that make us happy. And one of those things was to switch our phones off for the day and just focus on enjoying eachothers' company. So I've only got an hour or so at the end of the evening to write my daily post.

This is the second Christmas that's been just us, because jack's family are in the process of transitioning between generations of who hosts Christmas. And we're sort of experimenting with making a tradition of things that seemed to work well last year, including the offline thing. I think the internet is a really good thing, and it's the way I keep in touch with most of my dearest friends, so I don't in the least think it's virtuous to eschew it. But what we wanted to avoid was the habit where there's a lull in conversation, or you feel a bit tired and demotivated, so by default you just browse your Twitter feed or similar for half an hour, and I think that was really successful.

It's also true that some of what makes us happy is "commercial", if you like. We did buy eachother presents, including the new volume of Absolute Sandman to match volumes I-IV. And we bought a few presents for some close friends and we will give presents to jack's immediate family when we have a catch-up celebration with them in a couple of weeks. So in that sense, yes, we celebrated the commercialized version of Christmas. We didn't buy tat for everybody we know just for the sake of buying things, though, and we've avoided spending December in a must-buy-everything frenzy and we don't intend to go wild in January sales either.

Another thing we are trying to establish as a tradition is that we have a fancier than usual lunch, but keep it small enough not to be stressful and only eat things we actually like. So today we did roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings and kake's sweet and sour leeks, and we bought a nice quiche as a main protein thing (having little interest in nut roast), and a pre-made chocolate pudding because we're both unconfident about baking. So yeah, we spent a little more than we would on a typical meal at home, but not vastly extravagant, and we didn't deliberately over-eat or end up with more leftovers than we could ever get through.

We walked about 6 miles along the river and back, enjoying the winter sunshine and the chance to talk about subjects other than immediate logistical and household concerns. We watched the Kings carol service on iPlayer. We spent all evening playing Agricola, having decided that we needed time to play the games we already own more than we need new games. A couple of days back we bought enough staples like bread and milk to get us through a couple of days without needing to go shopping, but didn't stock up for a siege. I was a bit sad to see quite a few little corner shops open on the way home from our walk, I am afraid that's a sign they're financially desperate if they're doing that.

So really, it wasn't a hugely commercialized day at all, though we didn't actively avoid the commercial side of Santanalia. It wasn't really religious either, given that neither of us is Christian! Actually I kind of have to admit that I've ended up "celebrating" Christmas the way I really ought to keep Shabbat, but am not yet at a level where I can actually do that properly every week.

Am I annoyed by all the Christmassy adverts? Yes, to an extent, but it doesn't feel personally insulting to me because it's not my festival. And it amounts to deleting slightly more not-quite-spam emails than usual for a few weeks, mentally ignoring slightly louder and more annoying adverts cluttering up my environment, and continuing not to watch broadcast TV. I think in many ways I'm more offended by the whole Black Friday thing, even though Thanksgiving is not a religious festival really. I hate the idea that there's this huge orgy of shopping on the only day that most Americans can be sure to be off work, and I hate the fact that said shopping orgy blocks everyone who works in retail from spending TG with their families. I also hate the ridiculous classist mockery of people who are desperate for bargains because that's the only way they can afford nice things. And I especially hate retailers trying to make Black Friday into an event over in Europe, because it really is purely a festival of shopping given we don't even celebrate Thanksgiving!

It's late in the tail end of Christmas day and I'm not really quite formulating my thoughts properly. I'm kind of groping for something about a class divide, though. I mean, it is a problem that people's religions get turned into yet another excuse for advertisers to stridently demand we spend money on things we don't need. But it's almost more of a problem that in order for this to happen, people who are economically marginal have to work really really horrible jobs providing services to over-demanding customers. And then the comfortably off people who can afford to spend their festivals enjoying the company of their loved ones have the gall to look down on people stuck in this situation who may want to join in with buying stuff when they don't in fact have time to relax and celebrate in a "meaningful" way. That's the main reason I wish we could separate out religious festivals and time off work from giant shopping events, though honestly I would probably be happier if we didn't have the giant shopping events at all.

Anyway, I hope everyone's had the Christmas they were hoping for. And if you didn't, I hope things improve for you in the coming year.

[December Days masterpost]

Comments

[lethargic_man]

Nobody ever commercializes my religious festivals, because people basically have no idea what my religious festivals even are.

Hah; you evidently haven't seen the shops around me in the run up to any festival!

[mathcathy]

I've been planning to come to your party on Saturday but have spent the past few days struggling under a vicious cold - the kind that waits for you to relax and then attacks. I don't think a good time to come to a party full of mostly strangers is one where I'm partly unwell.

Maybe we can plan a games day, though, because you really aren't at all far away! Sometime next week or just a picked weekend sometime in the spring?

[liv]

Really sorry to hear you're not well, and I hope you're fully recovered soon! I definitely agree it's not a good idea to come to the party if you're feeling so miserable. And yes, it would be really nice if we could play board games next week while we're around in the same area. Monday or Tuesday, maybe? What works for you?

[mathcathy]

Tuesday can work for me :)

[davidgillon]

Santanalia

Love it!

Some wise words there on shopping, sales and attempts to manipulate us. I'm fairly meh on most of the advertising, but the Coke ads are really starting to irritate me as they're deliberately coopting Christmas traditions and symbology to be about Coke rather than Christmas.

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[(Anonymous)]

Some years ago I complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about posters on London Underground advertising a fruit drink. The advertisers were adapting Christmas carols and prayers in a way that I, as a Jew, considered blasphemous. The Advertising Standards Authority could not understand how this might be offensive.

Southernwood

[(Anonymous)]

I'm often glad that it's not one of the big festivals that got coopted. I mean, Christmas is important, but not as much as Easter or Pentecost, so it's good that that's the one that has all the tat associated - and I've been seeing all the menorah earrings and Chanukah gift wrap a little more each year, so I'm guessing you can understand?


(For an early birthday present, I promise never to buy you these: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/83497843/native-style-menorah-earrings-w?ref=sc_1&plkey=6d68346bb43a7721d214c67b5c54b79122ef2d9d%3A83497843&ga_search_query=menorah+jewelry&ga_page=2&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery)


AS for " end up with more leftovers than we could ever get through" epic communication failure with the ex - every year I'd buy a bigger and bigger turkey and every year he'd ask for more and more left over dishes so the next year I'd buy a bigger one. Eventually I revolted, because at this stage I hadn't had a turkey sandwich for 5 years, and said I wanted one now and if he wanted whatever the new dish was, he had to choose a standard leftover to drop because I wanted a sandwich, and he said that he'd only been suggesting recipes to use up so we wouldn't be stuck eating turkey sandwiches. This year we had goose, which doesn't come with a lot of leftovers, but I definitely value leftovers as much as the first round of eating, so even though there are a lot, it's not more than we eat. I mean, I've goose fat for a whole year's worth of potatoes, but again, I'll be having goose fat roast potatoes for a year.

[silveradept]

Huh. I think I gave the possibly least appropriate prompt there. Thanks for doing it anyway and turning it into something good.