The Elusive Spirit of Christmas

I'm definitely not feeling the Christmas spirit so far this year.  Maybe it is just because I've been having a lousy run of luck, with problem after problem popping up out of nowhere and diverting from actually setting any of my long term plans in motion.  Maybe it is because, this year, Christmas is unfolding against a background of a thoroughly shitty year on a personal basis, (compounded by the recent run of problems).  Maybe it is because there seem to be even more horrendous things going on in the wider world than usual, with the shadow of resurgent fascism looming over us all.  Then again, maybe it is because TV is, so far, doing such a poor job of evoking the spirit of the season.  This year has seen just about the lowest key, uninspiring and unmemorable crop of seasonal TV ads in the history of the medium.  There's not a single one that catches the attention.  It's as if the advertisers themselves can't be arsed to shift into Christmas gear.  Look, I know that we keep getting told that the economy is totally fucked and that we're all skint, but that's really no excuse.  Most of the ads are utterly bland, while others are simply pallid re-treads of previous Christmas ads, (someone needs to tell whoever has Aldi's ad account that Kevin the Carrot had his day at least five years ago and, with the latest ad, has well and truly outstayed his welcome).  Today, I finally saw a commercial that, (very slightly), stirred my seasonal spirit in the form of the Guinness Christmas ad - which understands that Christmas is all about nostalgia.  A nostalgia for those mythical Christmases of our childhoods, that never really existed outside of our unreliable memories.

Then there's the actual Christmas programming, which, this year, looks to be as insipid and uninspiring as the commercials.  Even the BBC's seasonal idents have an over-familiar feel to them - retreading ideas and characters from BBC Christmases past.  But at least they have special idents and a seasonal schedule, whereas most of the other channels seem to have given up altogether on the very concept of Christmas being a time when they should provide viewers with schedules full of special programming to entertain them over the winter break.  OK, I'll be honest here, I don't know whether ITV has a set of seasonal idents or not, as I so rarely watch their channels these days.  But going by recent precedent, if they do, they'll be utterly underwhelming and half-hearted.  It's all very disappointing - some of us rely upon our friend TV to distract us from all the shit going down in the world at this time of year.  We expect it to be packing its schedules with fun and goodwill.  But instead, these days, we just get warmed over retreads of their regular crap, but with a sprig of holly on them.  I can see that, once again, I'll be forced to resort to watching repeats of the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show on BBC2, made back in the seventies when TV understood what its role was as Christmas: to provide a shared cultural experience that took people away from the everyday shit and immersed them, for an hour or so, in a world of warmth and humour.  I know, I'm sounding like one of those terrible old farts who wanders around shaking their fist at modernity and prattling on about how it was 'all so much better when I was young'.  But I don't think that I'm being overly reactionary for being nostalgic for TV Christmases of yore, experiences that reassured you, for the duration of the season at least, that everything was OK.  Like I said, Christmas is all about nostalgia and in an age when we have the likes of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon/'Tommy Robinson', pint sized football thug, mortgage fraudster, neo Nazi and all round runt, trying to reclaim Christmas for fascism, we need the reassurances it provides more than ever.