The Walking Dead 7

Well, Gentle Reader, the ultimate festival of Zombie Nation is coming like a thief in the night. That`s right, darlings, Consumer-Mass, or should we call it Kitsch-Mas? It's as inevitable as teenage acne. Might as well cope. Even enjoy it. I don't know, I find the criticisms around Christmas every bit as enervating and depressing as the event itself, and apart from the empty, hollow loneliness that one always feels around this time of year, there must surely be things to enjoy about it? Like all the incredibly grossly delicious, fattening and unhealthy food, providing in three weeks a whole winter's worth of calories. How about all the lovely brightly coloured lights in malls, stores and adorning houses and apartments and condos that's maxing out the power-grid? How about all the Santa hats that almost half the population will be sporting, like a mutant army of militant consumers? And there's the shopping, shopping and more shopping and rivers of booze drowning our year of accumulated sorrow, regret and angst and all the dinners, the parties, the family gatherings, the guilt, the fake happiness and real happiness, because I refuse for one moment to believe that it's all fake. I think that for some people anyway, that Christmas provides a much needed safety valve for repressed bonhomie, which dovetails rather interestingly with the equally stored up cynicism. Some people, even Canadians, actually are happy and joyous, and for most of the year they cannot express it, because no one is going to get it, or no one is going to let it pass without some cynical or ironic commentary. People find happiness embarrassing. No wonder we have so many alcoholics in this country. I often get all panicky and miserable around Christmas, and if you have read a lot of other stuff on this blog, you'll see why: no family, no engaged friends, and I have to be super-creative every year if I don't want to be left isolated and at risk of suicidal ideation, which is the only time of year that becomes for me a danger. Counting my blessings helps. I'm not on the street, and I have a decent and affordable roof over my head. and I have enough to live on, even though I'm on a low income. But Christmas is still something to get through. Even the celebrating. But it has to be done. It is simply unavoidable. I think that part of this is that even though most people have no religious affiliations, don't go to church, and either don't believe in God or simply don't care, there is something essentially Christian about Christmas that not even Santa Claus, nor all the politically correct thought police can really eradicate. You can't get rid of Jesus, no matter how hard you try. And if his religion has been a major force in forming the culture and history that have helped form and nurture us, then neither can we get rid of him, no matter how much we drink, how much we spend in the mall or on Amazon, no matter how much we rename and rebrand Christmas as `Winter Holiday or some equally useless, bland and inclusive moniker. It is still Christmas. Christ-Mass, and he is not going away quietly, and if fact, no matter what we do to ignore the saviour of this world, he is not going away at all. So, even after one thousand renditions of Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, or I Saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus, no matter how many pop stars butcher the sacred beauty of such ancient hymns as O Come All Ye Faithful, we are still reminded, despite our denial, despite our stubborn and chronic refusal of the gift of life and hope that is Jesus, and Christmas remains inevitable, unavoidable and as certain as death and taxes. And I, for one, take a quiet sense of satisfaction that at least for six weeks of the year we can listen to music that proclaims that God came to us as Jesus, no matter how badly or ineptly sung. Because we are also counted among the inept singers of this vast and unwilling choir.