Is it just me, or is Christmas enjoying a comeback this year?
I'm thinking of what's often called the 'true spirit' of Christmas, rather than the consumer-fest that it's become in the 21st century. Usually by this time everyone's moaning about the piped music, the drudgery of Christmas shopping, the weather and the dreadful TV ads for perfumes that only get wheeled out in December.
But this year I get the feeling things are subtly different. OK, we've still got the sad TV adverts. But the shopping is less manic. We're sending fewer cards. Old-fashioned board games are being snapped up. The other day I did my first bit of darning in about 30 years. And it felt good!
This morning, the Archbishop of Canterbury on the Radio 4 Today programme talked about the moral urgency to live within our means and spend less, in defiance of what our government tells us. And the interview went on for 15 minutes or more: he was given time and space to speak, not cut short or 'soundbitten' down.
What's it all about? Maybe we should be thankful for the credit crunch, if it means adjusting our lifestyles so that they are more sustainable, and taking the time to reflect on the consequences of our actions.
On the blogs I've been noticing a definite trend towards charitable giving and even more significantly the reasoning behind charitable giving. I do feel that 'corporate social responsibility' has been hijacked to a certain extent as yet another (tax deductible) marketing tool. So these kinds of projects using social media to help charitable causes are a breath of fresh air. We've heard before that giving makes a person happy and now, according to Sonia Simone at Copyblogger, the key to success in business is in fact generosity to others, bucketloads of it.
Charities need our help now more than ever. We are all having to look at our outgoings with a sharp eye. There's less willingness to give stuff away; many prefer to sell their second hand goods on eBay.
I'm hopeful though. Hopeful that the 'spirit of Christmas' revival is an indicator that we may be thinking harder about what constitutes a civil society, and how giving really is better than receiving. What do you think? Am I reading too much into this?
