IN LIGHT OF the current Co-Op advertising campaign in which they play the Andy Williams Christmas song 'The Most Wonderful Time of the Year' to promote their summer products, I started thinking; wouldn't it b great if we moved Christmas to the summer.
Don't laugh. Think about it. I have never quite understood the sense of having it in the middle of winter. The weather is dreadful, it gets dark at half-past three in the afternoon and most people are suffering from one nasty bug or another.
On top of that, winter is a depressing time of the year for many people. Plus it is also the most expensive with extra gas and electricity bills.
Add Christmas into the mix, and all the extra stress that brings with it, and it is a recipe for disaster. It is no wonder that the suicide rate goes through the roof at this time of the year.
No. Surely it would make much more sense to move Christmas to a time of the year when most people are feeling happier and more at peace. Like August for example.
Lets look at the pluses. Firstly it would help to break up the 6 weeks summer holiday. Secondly the weather is likely to be good which would make travel plans to visit relatives that much easier. No road chaos due to ice and snow, less train and flight delays or cancellations. It would also lead to a far more pleasant Christmas Day experience.
Presents could be opened on the patio and Christmas dinner could be a bar-be-cue. The kids would be able to play in the garden, maybe get the paddling pool out, while the parents could be sipping Pimms and relaxing in the sun. Sounds good eh?
The only arguments I have heard in favour of leaving things as they are is all the clap-trap about Jesus' birthday and it being the only thing that currently makes winter bearable. Well lets look at that shall we.
Jesus was actually born in September, the seventh month of the old Jewish calendar. The Christmas celebration we know today was originally a pagan winter festival introduced to give the peasants something to look forward to in the bleak mid-winter. Quite how it became linked in to Jesus is unclear, although I suspect the Christians simply hijacked it.
I can certainly see the sense in having some sort of winter celebration. But with more and more people working right up until Christmas now, it's not like most of us get much of a break anyway. So leave the two Bank Holidays as they are and we could even have turkey for dinner if we felt so inclined. Plus of course, we would still have New Year's Day. That would break up winter nicely.
On the plus side it may even make January more bearable. There is always a post-Christmas hangover and that month seems to drag on forever. And to make matters worse you never have any money due to over-spending at Christmas.
So the more you think about it, the more appealing it sounds to move Christmas to August, right.
I would actually move it to the time we currently have the late-summer Bank Holiday. The kids are off school, the weather is usually nice and it is closer to the actual birth of Jesus, if he did indeed really exist.
So there you have it. My case for having a summer Christmas. So are you with me?
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