"I love Christmas!" ... "I hate Christmas..."
Two different people talking? No? One person with a bit of a split-personality problem? No? Someone who delights in making contradictory statements, then? No? How can both be true?
If you are a kindred spirit you will know all too well. Let me give just two or three examples of how both statements can easily be true.
1. You love Christmas, but the events of life have left some bitter memories and/or regrets at this time of the year.
2. You love Christmas, but you are a perfectionist, or are overly-sentimental (or both!), with the result that Christmas always fails to live up to your expectations.
3. You love Christmas, but you are a committed Christian who 'wrestles' with maintaining an appropriate balance between enjoying the 'worldly' and remembering the 'spiritual'.
Of course, if more than one of the above applies to you, you will certainly know what I mean.
Monday 24 December 2012
Thursday 6 December 2012
Christmas TV
It's the first week of December and, in the gaps between programmes, the main TV channels are beginning to give us those initial tantalizing glimpses of what is going to be on offer over the festive season.
It will be another week, or so, I guess, before we begin to learn in more detail about the schedules for this Christmas, but those first tasters reminded me of something that rather irritates me at Christmas time: for the want of a better phrase, I'll call it 'Christmas after Christmas'.
In a nutshell, what I mean is Christmas films and specials that focus on some aspect of Christmas (Christmas Eve, Santa, etc) ... which are then scheduled by whoever is responsible for these things on one of the days after Christmas!
To give one example, the family/children's film "Elf", a light-hearted, somewhat sentimental piece of Christmas fantasy, that reaches its climax in Santa's annual Christmas Eve activities. Last year, I think it was, it was scheduled for Boxing Day (or possibly even the day after that). But Santa is 'old hat' on December 26th! There are enough non-Christmas-specific films around that can be scheduled in that lazy holiday period between Christmas and New Year. (At the time of writing I have just seen a preview for "Elf" indicating it is being shown this year on December 9th - for which I'm glad).
Please, programme-schedulers: put anything Christmas-related on in the days leading up to Christmas!
It will be another week, or so, I guess, before we begin to learn in more detail about the schedules for this Christmas, but those first tasters reminded me of something that rather irritates me at Christmas time: for the want of a better phrase, I'll call it 'Christmas after Christmas'.
In a nutshell, what I mean is Christmas films and specials that focus on some aspect of Christmas (Christmas Eve, Santa, etc) ... which are then scheduled by whoever is responsible for these things on one of the days after Christmas!
To give one example, the family/children's film "Elf", a light-hearted, somewhat sentimental piece of Christmas fantasy, that reaches its climax in Santa's annual Christmas Eve activities. Last year, I think it was, it was scheduled for Boxing Day (or possibly even the day after that). But Santa is 'old hat' on December 26th! There are enough non-Christmas-specific films around that can be scheduled in that lazy holiday period between Christmas and New Year. (At the time of writing I have just seen a preview for "Elf" indicating it is being shown this year on December 9th - for which I'm glad).
Please, programme-schedulers: put anything Christmas-related on in the days leading up to Christmas!
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