Suburban Chimp - Finance & Social Commentary

Well, with just four days to go until Christmas Day is upon us and we all unwrap a bunch of presents we may or may not like (my wife is nice, I’m sure I’ll get something I want!) the last mad push towards the shops continue. I was out in Oxford Street, London yesterday and it was bedlam, I work close by and have to cross Oxford Street every day so it wasn’t if I was deliberately torturing myself with it, and I was wondering why on earth do we continue with this nonsense? Unless you do you Christmas shopping in November buying stuff, is just a pain. I know people just default this attitude to scrooge mentality, but come on it’s becoming a joke, along with the houses festooned with Christmas decorations, burning up electricity as if it was free! There are people who live in my street who spend the entirety of their lives on social security, no jobs, nothing who have spent thousands of pounds on the useless tat to make their houses look stupid. OK, they can spend their money on whatever they like, but this form of ‘showing off’ is not the spirit of Christmas, it is just a complete waste of money and a joke. I think the spirit of Christmas can be simplified, today I went to my local café to grab my usual breakfast of a couple of slices of toast and a tea, and today the owner said that it was a gift from him, saving me a couple of pound. A wonderful, appreciated gesture. That’s the spirit of Christmas, not buying or giving tonnes of pointless tat. What’s this inane rant got to do with an environmental blog? Well, it’s about consumerism, it’s about wasting resources for the sake of it, it’s about all the greedy things that make a modern day human being. Baa humbug to one and all!