Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells!

So its that time of year again.
Christmas time!

I like Christmas, but then I don’t.

See, I love Christmas because it brings people together. People who you haven’t heard from in months, years even, will send you a Christmas card. Family members all come over; people go away on holidays; everyone tries their hardest to be happy and smiling, even just for that one day of the 25th. I like the relaxing that Christmas day brings, the happiness, the family time, the proof of how much you love someone. Of course, just like any special day, Christmas day is important and people look forward to it.

But the one thing I don’t like about Christmas is the presents. Ok, call me weird and whatever, but it really is my least favourite part of Christmas. No, I’m not one of those die-hard Christians who believe Christmas should be about the birth of Jesus, not about presents and food and money. Because these days Christmas is about the presents and the food. It’s about being a family, or about being with your friends; it’s about having a good time. Which is good in my opinion, and far better than remembering the birth of Jesus, which although is important, it really isn’t very practical in our modern world.

The reason I dislike presents on Christmas is the fact that these days, so much money is spent. People go over the top being gifts of all kinds, both useful and useless gifts. The amount of money that is spent over the Christmas period is both phenomenal and ridiculous. Do we really need that many things just to have a good time? What about the saying ‘money can’t buy happiness’? I think, if we really wanted, we could have just as much of a good time if we totally skipped out on the present giving. Of course its always nice to show someone that you love them, but seriously, isn’t a nice hug and a good meal enough? For me, my favourite part of Christmas would have to be going away and camping and then waking up in the morning to find everyone in the campground so happy. Everyone has their new knickknacks that they’re playing with and almost every single person that you see has a smile. My favourite part of Christmas is the happiness that everyone has.

And also the food! It’s one of the few days where you can totally stuff your face with delicious food and not feel guilty because hey! its Christmas! I love it when delicious dish after delicious dish comes out and then after, and even better, all the sweet goodies come out! Mmmmmm! Yes, that would have to be my favourite part.

But I can still have all of that without the immense amount of money spent on presents. And I’m sure it’s even worse for children whose parents don’t have very much money. Because they will see other kids opening these hugely expensive presents and they will feel left out, that Santa doesn’t love them as much.

I think we could have just a good time without the presents on Christmas.
Because it’s the spirit of Christmas,
Not the objects of Christmas.