Why everyone gets the Christmas season wrong
The death of Advent and the forty days no one celebrates
This essay is about how the Advent went from 4 weeks of fasting in purple vestments to a 60-day shopping countdown: How we traded recollection for consumption, and lost Christmas in the process.
Between the 26th and 31st of December every year, the pavements in my neighbourhood are filled with fallen Christmas trees. Full pines, still strung with silver tinsel. Sometimes not even shaken out. They do not even make it to Epiphany (January 6th), which is the original Christmas Feast.
It is a time when nothing really happens. People have visited their families for Christmas, and offices are still open; but not really productive.
Each year, the Christmas season seems to start earlier. Decorations in shops appear in October. Advertisements call it ‘the most wonderful time’ before the clocks have changed. You hear songs on the radio, the lights go up, the markets open. And then, when the feast has just started, it is all dismantled.
By New Year’s Eve, any trace of Christmas is gone. Two months o…
