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£7 million? The true meaning of Christmas is surely priceless
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From Mary Young.
READING Ramsay Cudlipp in the JEP on a Saturday is always a pleasure, but this week he excelled himself with a light-hearted, but also thought-provoking look at the ridiculousness of TV Christmas advertising, which had me realising that I’m not the only one yelling at my TV on 1 November: ‘For goodness sake, why on earth would I want a new sofa or bed in time for Christmas?’
I, too, because I have a Waitrose credit card, was invited by an email to ‘preview’ the John Lewis Christmas advert. I just clicked delete as I’m doing with any message that has the word ‘Christmas’ in it, as I’m already suffering Christmas fatigue.
Years ago, when Christmas came on 25 December and we perhaps started preparing for it a week or so in advance, I used to go with my mother to Oxford Street in London on Christmas Eve to see the lights, to admire Selfridge’s wonderful window displays, and to eat roast chestnuts from the many hot chestnut stalls in that famous thoroughfare.
The atmosphere was wonderful and all the better because we hadn’t been bombarded with Christmas advertising for two months beforehand until we were sick of it.
Well done, Ramsay, for exposing the fact that John Lewis squandered seven million pounds on their ridiculous Christmas advert. That’s certainly brought a tear to my eye and not because of any fluffy bunny cartoon, but because I think of all the good seven million pounds could have done in the world.
If John Lewis wants to splash the cash then we could do with £7 million to build our new hospital, or support Hospice, or help the people in the Philippines or…oh, don’t get me started.
But it was his comments about money and Christmas gifts not buying the love of family and friends, and the enforced jollity of the season that I agree with most.
This year I will have three friends who will be out of work, having lost their jobs because of the economic situation. Little joy for them and a struggle to buy Christmas gifts when they don’t know when or where their next pay packet will come from.
So I’ll leave you with a tale from my husband’s family which shows that love is far more important than spending money. With three children to bring up, money was never plentiful in the Young household, but this particular year there was less than usual.
Desperate to give his youngest daughter a Christmas to remember, but with no money, Gordon set to and built his little daughter a farm, painted it and painstakingly crafted all the little animals with hours of love.
When I sold the family home a few years ago, what was the one thing his now grown-up daughter wanted? The farm her father had made for her all those Christmases ago. Now that, John Lewis, is a real tear-jerker.
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