HOORAY! HOORAY! IT’S HOLI-HOLIDAYS, CHRISTMAS IS BACK HO-HO-HO
By SHAMLAL PURI in London
Senior Editor – UK and Associate Publisher
It’s that time of the year when the daily grind at work takes the backseat, and everyone employed in the United Kingdom switches their mood from serious work to celebration mode.
Oh yes, Christmas is back again, and many people stop to take a breath and reflect on how fast the year has gone by.
Carl Jones of the University of Westminster, London, explains the significance of Christmas in The Conversation, a media outlet that offers insights and research findings from academia on the most significant issues to counter misinformation,
He writes, “December 25, as we all know, is Jesus Christ’s birthday, a Christian celebration in which the myth of three kings who travelled far and wide to give gifts to the “newborn king” inspires the modern Christian tradition of gift giving. Early gifts used to be fruits or nuts, but as this act took on more importance, gifts became larger and less modest and were placed under a tree.
“Midwinter has been a period of festivities for millenia, but Christmas as we know it today has its origins in Victorian Britain. It was in Victorian times that the idea of Christmas as a family holiday, with gift-giving, a tree, and an intimate dinner, became central to this celebration. Britons traditionally celebrate Christ’s birth with a religious mass. Hence, the words “Christ” and “mass” coming together to form the word Christmas.”
These days, the Yuletide season is so commercialised that your pocket sets the rules on how much fun you can have. These days, even the wallets of the strugglers send out May Day signals.
Your fun depends on how much money you have in your bank account and cash stashed away in the empty coffee jars for the rainy day.
Money is the barometer of how much fun one can have during Christmas.
The general rule is: Have money and enjoy the fun; no money, stay at home, munch discounted-price or buy-one-get-two packs, mince pies, moan about the weather, curse the politicians and have a low-key celebration.
The rich, who booked their Christmas holidays earlier, have already jetted off to the tropics to enjoy a Christmas feast on the golden sandy beaches under the swaying palms in the Caribbean, Kenya, South Africa, Mauritius, Australia, Dubai and Maldives, where luxury rooms can cost an arm and leg – quite far from the pockets of middle-class Britons.
They start their holidays five days before Christmas and return to work on January 4. Fifteen full days of fun! There are no pesky meetings or calls to interrupt their pleasure; they remain in high spirits.
Back in Britain, there are glittering Christmas lights in the main shopping streets and some areas in the main cities are drowned in neon lights.
On the other end of the scale, it is dark in most residential areas as most suburbians, the strugglers, conserve energy as part of their cash cutbacks.
A huge four-ton Christmas tree, around 30 metres high, has been given as a gift from Norway every year since 1947. It is lit on the first Thursday of December in the Trafalgar Square, radiating its Yuletide joy in all directions. It attracts many local visitors to the area.
On the main roads, pubs are alive, with office workers clinking glasses of their favourite drinks and munching mince pies to usher in the yuletide season. Warmth and cheerful voices are ringing in the pubs.
What exactly happens at office parties? Generally, there is a lot of goodwill, but things can sometimes go awry.
Sometimes, the celebrations go a bit far, and goodwill goes out of the window.
What exactly is the agenda at these parties? Fun and laughter, oh yes, but also at some parties, there’s plenty of ill-will – gossiping, back-biting against colleagues, backstabbing the boss (if he has skipped the party) and spitting venom, flirting and irresponsible revellers getting uninhibited.
Oh yes, it’s the Yuletide season – all moods are accepted.
Some people binge drink, ending up on the floor of the pubs or their offices.
Sometimes, the celebratory mood goes for a toss as drunk colleagues pick a bone and erupt into fights, the likes one sees among rowdy football fans during games at the stadiums.
Colleagues who see the funny side of the fight whip up their cellphone cameras and video the fights, which can include fisticuffs, for social media!
So much for technology!
It’s not easy to separate them; at times, besides puking, they have a sequel to their fight in the washroom!!
When they return to work after the holidays, they have no recollection of the event. All indiscretions are forgiven, well, almost.
Most small employers will give time off to their staff to celebrate but will shirk from financing their drinks as they cut corners on their spending.
Office parties are organised through staff funding or a whip around from colleagues.
It is a different matter with the giant corporations who host parties at their cost, inviting their prominent customers to join them for a bubbly. These parties are less rowdy as the bosses are around.
It’s different if the bosses have one too many…then diplomacy takes the backseat.
Few would gather the guts to stop the bosses going haywire! In this day and age, no one would hazard losing their job. To them, the boss is the boss and the King! And, one doesn’t have the guts to question the King of the Corporation.
Christmas mood comes just once a year unless you have won the UK National Lottery or the Euromillions in the middle of July…
How do ordinary Brits celebrate Christmas?
The more adventurous, well almost, monied class and homemakers too lazy to cook usually book dinner dates at local hotels or go coastal resorts for a few days of staycation.
Their meals cost anything from £50 to £200 a head, depending on the class of the place they visit.
Days before the event, they would visit the supermarkets for their festive shopping.
On their shopping list, the essentials include turkey, mince pies, bubbly, wine with high-sounding French names, the poor man’s champagne, vegetables – sprouts, broccoli, parsnips, carrots, mushrooms and the lot.
These days, some people even go for Chinese stir fry even though the Chinese do not celebrate Christmas, and oh yes, they don’t even eat chips, the favourite of Brits.
(I once made the mistake of asking for potato chips in a restaurant in Beijing only to be politely admonished by the waitress, “We Chinese don’t eat chips, Sir.”)
The religious types in Britain will make it a point to attend Christmas mass.
At home, they open their wardrobes, pull their Christmas caps stored (and almost forgotten) from the kast Christmas and don them to add flavour to the festivities.
Then, they would exchange gifts decorated under the ubiquitous Christmas tree before tucking into an evening of merry-making, including roast dinner with turkey and trimmings lashed with Bisto gravy.
They pray their holidays to be inspired by joy, marinated in peace with good tidings.
The tradition of exchanging Christmas cards has all but dried up –these days, e-greetings and phone calls have taken their space.
No wonder the traditional High Street stationers selling Christmas cards are complaining of poor business! Only some old-fashioned senior citizens would go out and buy Christmas cards.
Who rakes in the most cash? The businesses, of course. Most of them go laughing all the way to the bank with stashes of money.
Experts forecast that Christmas retail sales could reach £84.90 billion, growing by 3.3% over the 2020 figure of £79.70 billion.
An average British family spends around £550 to £800 on Christmas shopping.
According to an analysis by Finder, Brits are expected to spend an average of £602 each on Christmas gifts in 2023, an increase of 40% from an average spend of £429 in 2022.
The UK plans to spend a total of £27.6 billion on Christmas gifts in 2023, up 37% from £20.1 billion in 2022. 45.8 million adults in the UK (86%) plan to buy Christmas gifts in 2023, a decrease from 89% of adults in 2022.
Almost 23 million Brits (43%) plan to use credit cards to pay for their Christmas spending this year, spending over £14 billion on credit cards using plastic cards.
Christmas credit card spending is expected to reach £627 per cardholder in 2023, almost a quarter (23%) of the average UK monthly salary (£2,730). Generation Z plans to fork out the most on Christmas gifts, with an average spend of £828 each.
Shoppers are lured by several methods… old-fashioned advertising and old-time hit music.
UK supermarket chains are cashing in using nostalgic 1980s and 1990s music in adverts. Music has near universal power in influencing shoppers’ decision-making in the same way as they snap up music tapes and videos in music shops.
Tom Garner, Senior Lecturer of Human-Computer Interaction at Sheffield Hallam University, is convinced that music, which features prominently in people’s everyday lives, plays a vital role in the retail sector’s Christmas sales strategy.
Research has shown that big retailers are all too aware of this – as demonstrated by their Christmas strategies that consistently aim to establish, refine or reinforce a sense of brand loyalty. So, how does music factor into this equation?
He gives interesting examples of supermarkets’ success stories with their cash tills ringing.
“This year, Tesco’s Christmas advert tells the tale of a teenager resisting the urge to succumb to the Christmas spirit to the tune of OMC’s 1995 song, How Bizarre.”
Another chain, John Lewis’s publicity, sees a young boy raise a giant – and troublesome – Venus flytrap to the score of Festa, a new composition performed by Andrea Bocelli.
“Popular chain stores Morrisons and Waitrose both opt for 1980s hits, featuring Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, and Depeche Mode’s Just Can’t Get Enough, respectively.”
At the same time, Marks & Spencer presents Rita Ekwere’s contemporary cover of Meat Loaf’s 1993 anthem, I’d Do Anything for Love.
The travel industry in Europe is booming. This year is better than the last Christmas as rich people are determined to enjoy their holidays.
Most Britons prefer European holidays as the countries are closer. The more adventurous venture out to long-haul destinations.
Paris and Munich are among the top destinations for British holidaymakers travelling with their families.
In some parts of Europe – Italy, Austria, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Portugal and Sweden – Christmas holidaymakers have increased by over 25% yearly, according to holiday industry experts.
Holiday firms are set to earn more revenue in the Covid-19 post-pandemic holiday season, making up for the losses during the pandemic.
Christmas is in the winter when the Brits expect snowfall.
Talking of snowfall, these days, just a few drops of white powder falling on London raise false hopes of the British capital under a blanket of snow… after the heavy-weight talk of climate change.
Many northerners and Scottish people joke that when a drop of snow falls, Londoners rush to their homes in the fervent hope of watching postcard-type white scenes from their windows.
They are often disappointed when the weak winter- sun comes out to show off that it’s still around.
Weather is a gamble in southern England; Sometimes, we pay a lot of attention to TV and radio weather folks telling us that the gift of snow will be there on Christmas day. There is no snow.
Will London have a white Christmas?
That’s a million-dollar question. Let’s wait and see.
Meanwhile, snow or no snow, be merry and enjoy these holidays despite the belt-tightening on spending.