IN THE GOOD old days, the period leading up to Christmas was an excuse for rampant consumerism. Everyone was conditioned to spend, spend, spend – on super-expensive presents, vast quantities of food, extravagant nights out and so forth. This is how Christmas has come to be celebrated in most western countries and we Cypriots, with our inclination for excess, financed by growing affluence and easy bank credit, fully embraced this modern, advertiser-inspired, not-so-religious, tradition.
We have been forced to break with this tradition in the last couple of years for reasons that need no explaining. The town centres may still be heaving with people, but the shops are not doing the roaring trade of the past because money is tight. Even those who have it are much more careful how they spend it because all the certainties of the past have disappeared. Job security exists only for those employed by the state or SGOs, while for the rest of the working population life is riddled with uncertainty.
Who would have thought, three or four years ago, that there would be people in Cyprus depending on charity to put food on the family table and that several hundred houses would be without electricity because the owners could not afford to pay their bills? Apparently, 5.7 per cent of adults now depend on emergency food handouts from municipal and charity food banks, while schools have been undertaking food collections to help the families of poor students over Christmas.
According to a survey published today in this newspaper 79 per cent said they were cutting back on gift buying this year, and 52 per cent said they were spending less on groceries. More than half – 56 per cent – intend to exchange presents, marking a 6.0 per cent drop over last year.
Perhaps the difficulties faced by many people this festive period are helping us re-discover the true spirit of Christmas which is not about spending big amounts of money on expensive presents, luxury holidays or on large quantities of food, much of which is wasted.
In the words of one of the people interviewed yesterday for this newspaper, the crisis has affected the way we think about Christmas, “which in a way is positive because we are now concentrating more on how we spend time with our loved ones rather than what presents we will receive and what gifts we want”.
Maybe the current and next generation at least can once again enjoy the non-materialistic aspects of ‘Christmas past’ , relaxing, playing old-fashioned, zero cost, games and reflecting on the fact that even in these hard economic times, there are still people much less fortunate than ourselves in many parts of the world.
Merry Christmas.
