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Hiding for Christmas scrooges
By Linda Gibson (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-12-03 11:17
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Between now and Dec 25, Western expats in Beijing will be counting the days until Christmas. They happily buy and wrap gifts, decorate Christmas trees and plan holiday meals, cheerily humming Christmas carols all the while.
Some of us, however, find it a great relief to be thousands of miles away from our Christmas-saturated homelands. We love the fact that Chinese businesses won't subject its customers and employees to a relentless repetition of Christmas songs. It's a limited genre, so at home, each song gets played hundreds of times, day after day, week after week in elevators, gas stations, offices, bars, restaurants and stores, from Thanksgiving in late November until Dec 25.
By Dec 26, some of us hope to never again hear about Santa, Rudolph or jingling bells.
Then there's the family gathering to be endured. Granted, many of these are actually pleasant, even fun. Gifts are exchanged, family stories are told and maybe happy new memories are created for future Christmases. Or, maybe too much rum punch leads once again to loud arguments, fisticuffs, crying children and a visit from the police.
Christmas also presents creative challenges. Year after year, you have to think of new gifts to give people who might have received 20, 30, 40 or more Christmas gifts from you. Some of them have very long memories and are certain to remind you that they already received lovely scarves from you on the Christmases of 1974, 1978, 1983, 1986, 1991, 1995, 1998, 2001 and 2007.
You also must appear to appreciate weird gifts given to you: a plaque with a fish that sings Take Me to the River, suitable for hanging on your wall, or a gift you gave someone who didn't like it and is now giving it to you because they forgot you gave it to them in the first place.
The economic pressure is intense. Depending on what set of data you look at, Americans spend an average of $500 to $900 on Christmas gifts every year.
About 70 percent of the US economy is based on consumer sales, and retailers count on Christmas for a huge chunk of their yearly revenues. So right before the holiday, millions of advertising messages urge consumers to buy, buy, buy.
These ads typically show grateful spouses and ecstatic children glowing with happiness at the gifts that supposedly demonstrate how much they are loved. The message is that the more someone spends on you, the more you are loved.
The most well-known example is the annual catalog of Christmas gifts from the luxury department store, Neiman Marcus. Each year, this catalog features an over-the-top, ridiculously decadent and fantastically expensive gift. In 2000, it was a $20 million submarine. In 2004, a Zeppelin for $10 million. This year, as a nod to the fact that so many people have lost jobs and homes lately, the store has scaled back. This year's most expensive gift is a two-seater Icon aircraft at the bargain price of $250,000.
Not everybody gives in to the pressure. Some families go to a homeless shelter on Christmas Day and help dole out food to the needy. Or they limit gift-giving so that each person gives and gets only one item. Some put a dollar limit on gifts, or specify that all must be purchased at a second-hand store. Others make donations to worthy causes.
The Ebenezer Scrooges among us - those who say, "Bah humbug!" to Christmas - are mostly looking forward to the day after Christmas, when all the holiday hoopla ends.
