Have Yourself a Very Adult Christmas

Posted: 24 December 2012

Once again, Christmas is upon us; Santa is out in full force, shopping centres are playing Bing Crosby and the ‘spirit of giving’ is in the air. You may be planning to attend the local Christmas Carols at some point. If it is a religious caroling event, the children may be dressing up as shepherds and angels; if they are the larger ‘commercial’ carols you will be more likely to see the little ones dressed as elves and reindeer. However Christmas is celebrated though, it is well and truly a season that lights up the faces of children everywhere.

From a marketing point of view Christmas is like manna from heaven, the car parks are crowded, the food courts are full and the EFTPOS terminals are running hot. While many families, including my own, go with the ‘Kris Kringle’ method of present giving, (meaning that each adult buys for one other adult in the family), the children always receive individual presents from all the members of the family. Outranking gifts from mum and dad however are the gifts children receive from the jolly man in the red suit. Once based in the historical personage of the gift giving Saint Nicholas, from the early 20^th century he has strangely morphed into a man living at the North Pole with a large team of magical elves and flying reindeer.  Read the rest of this entry »