Wow! Superb! Fantastic! How amazing! Capitalism drives Christmas on to being bigger and better and happier and more exciting than ever before. They may act cool but young people are left twitching with excitement, hoping that this Christmas maybe, just maybe....
In the weeks beforehand, I listen to them telling me about the presents they're going to get, the people they're going to see, the things they're going to do at Christmas. It's all going to be wonderful. I hear about Christmases when they were small and how they couldn't wait for the day to come. With all its nostalgia and expectation, looking backwards and looking forwards, Christmas raises an important issue for young people.... Why does the exciting world that I remember seem so disappointing nowadays? Why are my presents no longer as surprising as they were? Why are other people so irritating? Why do our family routines seem so predictable?
Whenever we talk about ‘Christmas', we talk unconsciously about parents and parenting because, young or old, our experience of Christmas is inevitably bound up with the parents and the childhood that we remember, with the world as it used to be. For most of us, those memories seem warm and straightforward compared to the harsher and more complicated realities with which we now grapple. Christmas confronts us with the disappointment of life as it is compared with life as we remember it and life as we see it portrayed in the jingling, jangling adverts.
