Saturday 28 December 2013

The spirit of Xmas

First of all, belated Yuletide Greetings. I hope everyone had a good time, I certainly ate and drank too much, but hey, that's what this season is all about. I got into the swing of things fairly late, and I only put the tree up at the last minute, didn't send any cards or buy any gifts, apart from a couple of token pressies for under a tenner. I broke with tradition and gave the turkey a reprieve this year, and didn't get any champagne. It's too expensive and I can't stand the bloody stuff anyway.

But funnily enough, my austere Xmas has been one of the best ever. And that's what it's all about really.

Unfortunately, the media would have us believe otherwise. Since early November, just after Halloween, tv advertisers have been bombarding us to buy stuff that we cannot afford. Ads for designer perfume are intersected with other ones for payday loans.

Around this time, research carried out by the Money Advice Service found that 1.2 million people in the UK were considering using payday loans to fund their Xmas.



But when the story emerged a couple of days ago of an unemployed mother of 2 who had borrowed over £1500 from 8 different companies to buy presents for her kids, the tabloids, such as the Daily Mail (aka Daily Hell) were quick to condemn her.


But whose fault is this though? Society has become totally materialistic, people are obsessed with buying stuff that  they don't really need. Just a couple of weeks before Xmas, we experienced the madness that was Black Friday - people fighting to buy things at a 'discount' (in reality stuff that was previously overpriced anyway). Young children get bullied at school for not having the latest designer trainers.

Yes, Katie McGill acted recklessly, but before we point the finger at her, we need to take a good look at our values as a society in general.