Diary 261

Friday, December 4th

Beyond all the news of lockdowns, Covid deaths and infections lurks (for me) another question; the attitude to Christmas, Hanukkah, and the New Year celebrations. I’m not referring to the religious aspects of these days, which is surely up to each individual to decide. No, I’m looking at the accoutrements of ‘holidays’. We’re told that these are traditional times of festivity. But to what extent were these festivals manufactured simply to sell us things? Now we’ve become accustomed to them in this form so we regard them as a right, and as somehow essential to preserve in that crowds-at-close-quarters version.

These were always days of celebration. Yet in the not-so distant past all the major festivals were likely to be held in summer, when the weather was good and people could travel easily, since they were probably going to have to travel on unpaved roads and on foot. These were the big summer festivals. Thanksgiving or Harvest Festivals were in the Fall, when food was plentiful, so they were about feasting. Christmas was also about food because it was time to slaughter the livestock for which there was insufficient fodder to allow them to survive the winter. You didn’t give people a present so much as you handed them a slice of mutton.

I don’t want to return to those old days. I just want to consider that as with children, if you give them a cookie when they come in from school, then you must expect to always to have to give them a cookie whenever they come in from wherever. The rising expectations of treats seem to have taken over our lives. 

Here, in Covid time, we have the opportunity to rethink some of this, perhaps to scale back on the waste that seems synonymous with Christmas. Plastic waste that goes to landfills and the oceans and degrades our world.

When people protest against holiday season restrictions, do we know what is really at issue?