4th November 2003

SANTA CLAUS IS COMING TO TOWN

And don't we bleedin' know it ...

Striding down the street the other day, into a damp November breeze, I had to pause, incredulous, on reaching the welcoming doors of our big new branch of Next. From these doors emanated not only the radiating glow of consumer warmth, inviting the wet and frozen outside to take refuge and wrap themselves up in the comforting blanket of compulsive purchase. There were sounds, too … A sleigh bell here. A hearty pumpkin-pie chorus of schmaltz there. I raised my eyes to the heavens and it looked like reindeer. Yes indeed - on the second day of November, Next were playing their Christmas album.

How can a retail brain possibly think that ambient Yule will draw someone into a shop, even while the last ghouls of Halloween are being consigned to their coffins for another year, before Guy Fawkes, poor chap, has felt the first lick of flame on his wretchedly paraffin-soaked behind? Are you not less likely to ponder the products and agonise over exactly which weave of denim you prefer while Noddy Holder’s throaty exhortations ring out around? No, Noddy – I’m not hanging out my bloody stocking on the wall because, frankly, here is certainly not yet merry Christmas and any fun I might have been having is rapidly evaporating, as I run out of the shop in search of sanctuary. Jesus Christ, I would implore at this point – but He won’t be born until the end of next month!!

Don’t get me wrong. I love Christmas, for mince pies, turkey, spending time with the family, carol singing, It’s A Wonderful Life on telly and curling up by the fire in a mildly alcoholic haze of contentment. (Some people enjoy the life-affirming religious stuff too.) But, personally, I love it because it only comes round once a year, fleeting and cherished – the one day of the year when finding a satsuma at the bottom of your dad’s football sock, leaving a carrot on a plate by the back door, and other such magical rituals of child-like regression, are allowed.

But, around this day of snowy wonder, we have created a monster – an antlered fluorescent-neon lolloping mound of lard and mixed peel, beady pink eyes maniacally flashing on … then off … then on again with tasteless inevitability. It creeps insidiously into our lives in October and swoops upon us in November, its fetid sprouty breath dogging our every retail experience. By the time Christmas has actually arrived, people are hiding under their trees, cowering from the beast, hoping only for some myrrh to put a speedy end to their miserable existence.

© Ben James 2003