Oh I wish it could be Christmas everyday… or not

I happened to be in London this past Halloween. I was in Covent Garden having had a lovely, if not a little boozy, dinner with my dad. We left the restaurant at around midnight and what do you suspect had happened? Well I’ll tell you… Christmas, apparently.

The whole of the covered market area was now bedecked with giant (rather garish) Christmas baubles hanging from the ceiling. It being a casual Sunday night, my dad and I were amongst the few to bear witness to this atrocity. I believe I even went so far as to ask the man on the ladder whether he knew we were only minutes into November. Never did catch his response…

I find this whole situation utterly absurd. One cannot deny that the atmosphere now is positively festive and it is the middle of November.
If John Lewis has declared it that time of year, then what else are the public to think?

Shops are glittering with fairy lights and amuck with tinsel, the Christmas lights have been turned on in fair Leamington, Tesco have got the Christmas carols going, and did I point out it is still November?!

While I appreciate that there is nothing more exciting than that warm yuletide feeling of the beginning of the season and people will always be keen to get the festivities a-go, I think that things have gotten out of hand.

Consumerism has already ruined Valentines Day, Halloween, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day… but surely someone is going to stop the almighty market from distorting the season of joy? I guarantee that people are going to run out of festive feeling as quickly as they run out of the extra pounds they are spending on all the ‘merriment’. By having a two-month long Christmas period the actual day is inevitably going to be disappointing. And then, when all is finally over, surely January is going to be even more depressing. Out-of-pocket, out-of-shape and out-of festivities. What a way to start the New Year.

Please do not get me wrong, I am certainly no Scrooge. Quite the opposite in fact. It is because I love Christmas that I am so outraged by this premature start to the season. I think the majority would agree with me in that there is such a thing as one mince pie too many.