Bah! Humbug!

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In the politically correct Third Millennium (CE), nobody (including the undersigned) sends a “Christmas Card” any more. You send a “Happy Holidays” card to include everyone.

Conveniently, the simple symbolism surrounding the Northern Hemisphere Winter Solstice seems so entrenched in the collective consciousness that a card (or e-card, for which I argue in 21st Century Technobetics) with a pretty flickering candle covers Christmas, Chanukah, Di(pa)wali, and many other adherences and traditions, both religious and secular.

Now essentially, I don’t have a problem with that. We live in a shrinking multicultural world, and while my Irish Great-Great-Grandmother probably didn’t know anyone of a religion different to her own, it is entirely normal in today’s global corporate world to interact (albeit virtually) with people in Washington, Amsterdam, Beirut, Tel-Aviv, Brunei and India, all within the course of any working day.

However, I have recently observed that this political correctness is creating an unfortunate loophole in a formerly watertight (unwritten) Dutch law - one which I really used to like…

In the Netherlands and Belgium, the festival of Sinterklaas is celebrated on 5 and 6 December. It’s not a difficult jump from Sinterklaas to Santa Claus, but in order to protect this centuries-old tradition from the Americanised interloper (who since the 1680s, cispondians prefer to call “Father Christmas” as the now familiar rotund “Ho! Ho! Ho!” fellow was only invented in the early 1900s by the German-born “father of the American Cartoon”, Thomas Nast), there is an unwritten ‘cultural pact’ between the retail trade and the public: No Christmas marketing until after Sinterklaas. Effectively, what it means is that if you walk into a Dutch supermarket, you won’t hear tinny Jingle Bells or Santa Claus is Coming to Town piped ad nauseam over the PA until after 6 December!

Now, I’ll leave it to the Christians to argue about the commercialisation of both Sinterklaas and Christmas, but suffice to say that in the millennia predating the Rabbi from Kinnerret, even the most primitive trading posts and later, markets throughout the Northern Hemisphere would surely have been bustling places ahead of the Winter Solstice. So there just seems to be something logical and proportionate in marketing Christmas in December.

Over a decade of living in the Netherlands had lulled me into a false sense of security. The rude awakening came to me while browsing the aisles of Sainsbury’s (which is conveniently open 24-7) during a visit to the UK in early October. I stood still. Jingle Bells? Deck the Halls? In October? I genuinely though they must be testing the system or something. Then I turned into an aisle with “seasonal articles”. Well call it what you like, festooned with holly, reindeer, stars and baubles. I waited for the Tanoy to drawl Santa Claus is Coming to Town and the associated gag reflex, but the Sainsbury’s DJ spared me that, so I wheeled my trolley to the car park upon which it seems Good King Winceslas Looked Out. “Seasonal articles indeed! Clever loophole,” I thought, “they’ll never get away with that in Holland”.

I was wrong. Hugely wrong. Today, while navigating an ungainly trolley through a large store, heading (in spite of one wobbly wheel) to where I know the international cheese section aught to be, it wasn’t! Ho! Ho! F*ck#ng Ho! “Seizoensartikelen”! Piles of white boxes marked “Made in China” with structurally unstable-looking and not particularly convincing plastic Christmas trees. Reindeer, stars, angels and flickering faux-candles (they say LED is the way to go this year)… and, er, sorry... what happened to the tons of tinsel, baubles and plastic reindeer they sold last year? But the waste around the festive season is another story...

Now over the years, I’ve had my fair share of laughs that fall into the “Christmas Special” category. Try growing up in a place where it can be 30 degrees in the shade in November, but the shop windows in every High Street are sprayed with imitation “snow”... but Christmas Carols in October? Am I alone in finding that bordering on überabsurd? Happy Commercialmas!

Oh, and don’t forget: There are now only 59 shopping days left ‘til Christmas. And as Scrooge (or Dickens) didn't have nearly the spectrum of obscenity vernacular at his disposal than I have: Bah! F*ck#ng Humbug!  – AMB

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