Eoghan O’Sullivan | Staff Writer
I’ve been around for twenty-one Christmases, and can say without doubt that the build-up to last year’s celebration found me at my lowest ever level of excitement for the holiday season. In the lead up to the day itself I felt little of the anticipation and eagerness that I had felt in previous years; sleeping on Christmas Eve did not present the difficulty it once did, I even had a lie in on Christmas morning.
This wasn’t a new or unexpected happening; since I’d been twelve or thirteen my sense of excitement around Christmastime had diminished fairly steadily year on year, last year merely represented its nadir thus far. Through speaking with others over the years, it has become clear that I’m not the only one affected in this way, the vast majority of people I’ve spoken to have admitted feeling less excited about Christmas than they once did.
Some might say that this is due to a general lack of Christmas spirit; that we’re all growing dissatisfied with and disconnected from a holiday that is grotesquely over-commercialised and increasingly detached from any real meaning. However, I don’t think I’d agree with this.
The commercialisation of Christmas is annoying, and leads to unseemly levels of spending and consumption. It can and does place great pressure on people to buy gifts and often results in people, particularly parents, spending money that they don’t have on presents they can’t afford. As damaging a phenomenon as this is, I still wouldn’t consider it responsible for the lack of excitement for Christmas that afflicts many people. Christmas was over-commercialised long before I was born, and my growing awareness of this as I got older wouldn’t necessarily have corresponded directly with my lessening enthusiasm.
As for the argument that Christmas has lost all meaning; certainly, Christmas has moved beyond being a solely religious holiday, although for many it still does have an important religious aspect, but I’d argue that this is a good thing. I think that this transcending of religion makes it a more inclusive holiday, as well as a more genuine human celebration.
What I think has happened is that as I have grown older my understanding and appreciation of the holiday has changed and matured. The incredible levels of excitement and anticipation that I felt when I was younger were mainly down to the fact that Christmas was a day on which I would get presents. The idea that I was going to receive something was indescribably thrilling, and I’d imagine most children would have felt exactly the same. Back then, in the days before I received any sort of pocket money or had a job, I got presents twice a year, on Christmas and my birthday, and that was it. The fact that something happens infrequently means that it is far more exciting when it does happen and this seems to have been an attitude my childhood self subscribed to whole-heartedly. It probably didn’t hurt either that it was one of the few days of the year when it was acceptable to watch television all day and stuff myself with sweets.
However, as I grew older and had more money of my own, I was able to buy things for myself, so the frequency with which I got things increased. I think it’s likely that this is one of the reasons why my levels of Christmas-related excitement began to fall. The mere fact that Christmas was a day on which I would receive gifts was no longer enough to make me feel the incredible enthusiasm I had felt as a small child. It’s entirely possible that other people’s feelings in the run up to the holiday have changed over time for the same reason. I’d also like to think that my increasing maturity meant that I was less materialistic than I had once been, but I’d freely accept that this could be an indulgence in vanity on my part.
In the past few years, in spite of my excitement at Christmas decreasing, my appreciation of Christmas as a holiday has not been diminished. I enjoy it just as much as I ever did, but for very different reasons. Beginning college generally results in students seeing home, family and school friends far less often than they were used to, and in my case this has resulted in the development of a fondness and appreciation for being at home that I never had before. Seeing less of people definitely makes you value them more and what Christmas now provides for me is the opportunity to see people who I might not have been seen for a while, or who I’d like to see more often.
For me now, and for many other students and young adults, the Christmas spirit now means spending time with loved ones, enjoying the company of others. We’ve moved beyond being excited solely by presents, although of course we all still enjoy getting them. This is reflective of how experience of and attitudes towards Christmas change over a lifetime. My perception and experience of the Christmas spirit has changed from what it once was, and I feel certain that it will change again. Should any of us go on to have families, it seems obvious to say that our idea of the Christmas spirit would then change to include us wanting to see them enjoying Christmas.
So I don’t think it’s necessarily a good thing that people would try to recapture the feelings they had about Christmas when they were young. Would others view it positively if we were to get unbelievably excited over the idea of getting gifts? I think it’s clear that there’s only one answer to that question. Nostalgia could certainly be taken too far. Just because our feelings towards Christmas have altered from what they once were doesn’t mean that we should appreciate it less, or think that it’s less meaningful than it once was.
