What Christmas Means to Me

Christmas Time is here again. There are only 2 days now until the big day when the jolly fat man breaks into your house, so I hope you’ve got all your Christmas shopping done.

Christmas means different things to different people. Some people don’t do Christmas at all and just see it as a day like any other. Some people are religious and celebrate it as the birth of Jesus. And some just see it as an excuse to eat a lot of food and get drunk.

What does Christmas mean to me?

Well, I’m not religious so I don’t believe that Jesus was born on 25 December. He could have been born at any time. In fact, the reason that Christmas is on 25 December is because it used to be a pagan festival that was hijacked by Christianity.

People have been celebrating around this time for thousands of years because of the winter solstice which takes place on 21 December.

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia in December which involved things like getting drunk and having a big party, which isn’t so different to nowadays.

So for me, Christmas doesn’t have any religious significance.

Christmas, like pretty much every other major holiday, has become far too commercialised. People seem to feel compelled to spend lots of money in order to show people that you care about them. I don’t think you need to spend lots of money to do this.

Giving presents to people is nice but spending quality time with friends and family is more meaningful in my opinion.

Companies fall over each other every year in order to try and entice you to buy their products. I mean, John Lewis spent £7 million on their Christmas advert this year (and pretty much every year.) I think that says it all. It would be much better if they donated £7 million to charity instead.

You can’t watch TV around Christmas time without being bombarded by toy adverts trying to get children to pester their parents to buy it for them. Or sofa adverts by companies who think that people (who probably have a hangover) want to rush out on Boxing Day to buy a sofa. Seriously, who does that?

But don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things I like about Christmas. Here are some things I like:

• Spending time with friends and family. However, I often miss what is being said in conversations due to my hearing loss.
• Christmas food! Freshly baked home-made sausage rolls, Christmas pudding, Chocolate Log, mince pies, lots of chocolates, and of course Christmas dinner.
• Christmas lights and decorations. I’m like a magpie – I like shiny things
• Listening to Christmas carols. We often go to a carol service on Christmas Eve to sing some. My favourite carol is Hark the Herald Angels sing.
• I like how there are lots of movies on TV around the festive period. It’s nice to chill out and watch TV for a while

What does Christmas mean to you? What do you like about it? What don’t you like about it? Let me know in the comments below