Post-It Philosophy

Could have been one of a range today... (linked were below, but now deleted I'm afraid)

This Monday morning has been brought to you by the act of being the only person on this floor in the office and the letters 'M' and 'E' with the number '1'. Or the number '99', being one step closer to making the ton.

Hard to believe it's already December, although venturing into any shop over the last month would make you feel it arrived some time ago. I thought we were in the middle of a credit crunch? Maybe the actual figures will bear that out, but at the moment people seem to be going utterly mental. Christmas, a celebration that has morphed over time from a stolen Pagan festival, to a time for families to be together and people to play football insyead of shooting each other, and finally to a gorgefest of media and greed-fueled obsession with getting 'stuff'.

It's not to say I won't be indulging in the buying of presents, but it's not an all-encompassing desire and need which sees me sweeping to the local out-of-town shopping centre to stand in queues listening to Noddy Holder explaining in his dulcet tones that it's Christmas while people complain about how expensive it's all getting at the same time as acquiescing to every demand on the crayon-scribed list from their spoiled little brat.

We used to look foward to Christmas (and bear in mind here I'm 32, not 82) because you had waited all year for that special gift, and you'd saved all year to get someone else that special gift. Today everything is easier, toys and games and allsorts are bought throughout the year irrespective of the seasonal bent. Despite the current monetary crisis there is still an overwhelmingly larger disposable income going around, which renders Christmas as something where people just have to spend more than they do the rest of the year. Which turns it into some sort of shopping death-match as demand constantly outstrips supply.

I love Christmas, absolutely adore it, still get stupidly excited (I'm not religious, I like the middle-morphed version). But this, what is going on just now, it's not Christmas, rather it's a feeding frenzy. And it's ugly.