With the holiday season in full swing, seasonal merriment, and madness, takes hold of even those otherwise considered sane. Beginning at Thanksgiving and rolling relentlessly through Christmas and the New Year, the cacophony and chaos seem to crescendo. Welcome to the hilarity of the holidays.
As we gave thanks for the blessings bestowed upon us so abundantly, people like me, who thrive in an attitude of gratitude, tend to see the glass half full. This outlook was inherited from my mother, who always wore a bright smile and maintained an effervescent spirit, no matter what battles she was fighting. She trained my sister and me to march on and bound over life’s hurdles, always looking toward a brighter horizon. Sitting with family at Thanksgiving, we gave thanks while wishing, praying, and manifesting good things for the future.
From Thanksgiving onwards, Black Friday signals the start of the annual shopping frenzy. People rush to stores to purchase what they think, presume, or imagine they need, filling their lives with clutter and debt in time for Christmas. This riotous retailing targets the most vulnerable, gullible, and clueless, those who believe a so-called “price slash” means they are getting the deal of a lifetime. Oh, how sadly mistaken they are. From blenders to Bentleys, juicers to jewellery, the madness takes full force. And every new purchase, of course, must be photographed from every angle and posted on social media to prove that one actually went shopping.
As December progresses, this retail tragedy accelerates to supersonic speeds. Credit cards dangle “special offers” that are rarely deals at all, merely fueling deeper debt. Malls fill to capacity, spreading holiday cheer along with viral flu strains, children contracting measles and sore eyes in play areas, adults contracting buyer’s remorse when their statements arrive. With canned carols piped through the sound systems and a perpetually disgruntled Santa roaming the halls, the shopping masses are thrilled to spend money they don’t have.
Venture into the city’s hospitality venues and the scene repeats itself. Catastrophic clutter, contrived décor, staff dressed like emotionally disturbed elves from Santa’s workshop, and prices hiked to laughable extremes, all justified by “the season.” Reservation desks buzz as people scramble to book parties, almost a precursor to the hospital desks that will later overflow with cases of food poisoning, alcohol poisoning, and injuries from libation-fueled wrestling matches. More the merrier, I say. If you want to spend a million on canapés and crudités, more power to you.
The party parasites salivate at the prospect of being invited to the dizzying carousel of over-the-top soirées whose sole purpose is to showcase the host’s spending power. Is there any other time of year when party planners can truly live by “ask and you shall receive” not spiritually, but financially? The more they charge, the more hosts believe they are getting value, though this is rarely the case. The primary targets? The deeply insecure, upwardly immobile nouveau riche, desperate to announce their position in this very small town’s social hierarchy.
These hosts strive to outdo themselves in being the crassest of the crass and tackiest of the tacky. Battling through layers of glittering décor, tripping over fake Aubusson rugs and Persian carpets made in China, one is accosted by liveried staff resembling extras from Anna and the King, offering platters of everything money can buy.
Guests who would happily drink backyard-distilled brews suddenly transform into wine-snob wannabes, sniffing, swirling, and feigning expertise.
Then come the toasts, the boasts, and the grand announcement that dinner is served. Every legally edible animal is slaughtered and presented, alongside side dishes featuring vegetables flown in from distant lands, some rarer than a partygoer with a moral compass.
The evening culminates on the dance floor. Sometimes this twirling is followed by being dragged across it by a liquor-laced excuse for a spouse or a disgruntled mistress. Guests jive, jiggle, and jostle as holiday fashion, or the lack thereof, takes centre stage. Women dressed like exploding Christmas ornaments, swathed in sequins, squeezing into dresses designed for their toddler years, cut a rug while cutting style and good taste to shreds. Looking like Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park has detonated on your body does not constitute holiday fashion.
Hemlines creep higher, necklines plunge lower, and for some revelers, “the cup runneth over” becomes alarmingly literal. It is the season of “Ho Ho Ho,” but this need not be reflected in one’s behaviour. Men, meanwhile, compete to showcase the largest logo belt buckles, flashiest shoes, and shirts emblazoned with fake designer labels, items so offensive they could drive the original designers into early retirement at an ashram. Everybody part drips with bling, reminiscent of “rings on her fingers and bells on her toes.”
As I have said before, unless you are Mrs. Nita Ambani, do not attempt quail-egg-sized emeralds or meteor-sized diamonds and expect anyone to believe they are real. Pretending to shop at Sotheby’s when the purchase was made in Slave Island or Maradana is a stretch of the imagination.
Can someone please inform the fashionable folk that dressing, and acting, your shoe size rather than your age is simply not on? Are women in Colombo auditioning for a Nancy Sinatra remake of ‘These Boots Are Made for Walkin?’ Knee-high boots on red carpets might make sense in Oslo or Warsaw, but Sri Lanka’s climate is closer to the surface of the sun.
Amid all this excess, let us remember that many around us are neither financially nor psychologically able to celebrate. We have recently endured devastating losses of life, livelihood, and property. If we have been fortunate enough to escape direct impact, can we not share our blessings? If you can help, include, uplift, and bring light into lives shadowed by darkness and despair, please do so. Not for social-media validation, which negates the very essence of generosity, but to truly embody the season of joy. In doing so, we quietly honour the spirit of Christ in CHRISTmas.
