Tuesday, December 23, 2008

turned tender by circumstance

i am touched by, and grateful to, all the people who have sent messages by email and on facebook and txt and phoned and visited.
thankyou - every one of you.

mam's funeral will be on 30th december at St johns church, dipton at 1.15PM.

i am in a spaced out zone at present, caught up between the reality of organizing the things one must arrange after a death, and the unreal spectacular that is called shopping-christmas.

I always like to buy a big ham for christmas eve, and that means a trip to Grainger Market in the toon. Job done - but found myslef also wandering with all the other last minute present-buyers and bargain hunters.

A moment in Woolies, that's Woolworths to those of you not in UK - whose demise is now imminent, and being in there was really sad, in a number of ways.

The shelves are half empty and hanging off the walls (and even the shelves themselves are for sale!), stuff piled here and there willy nilly, it was described today on the radio by someone as 'third world - like' and i got a sense of that. But also, Woolies is where mam used to shop when i was a kid..... especially at Christmas... that and Doggarts, (long gone now), a kind of downmarket John Lewis' in those days.

I hear on the radio also, that we all must now become 'consumer bullies' and in the dog eat dog world of the high street, those shops who will survive this mega tough period will be the ones that 'look after their customers' and 'provide exceptional service'.... and other similar pap
Its for sure that many many people will be feeling vulnerable this Christmas..... unsure of their jobs and careers, worried for their families, scared even.

I saw also, a homeless person huddled on an alley corner, and was overcome with a mixture of guilt and thankfulness.... guilt for not walking up to them and handing over everything i had in my pockets... thankfulness that i have a warm house, and wonderful family waiting for me when i got home.

Am I bringing you down?

I ain't done yet.....


Was Christmas always nostalgic?

I guess it will always be the time when most of us remember as being the best ever, all those presents and family (at least trying) being specially nice to each other. Great food, best telly, new toys....
Seems to me that the industry of Christmas survives completely on the nostalgia trip, feeds on it, and for me, whilst in some ways it does offer that warm glowy mix of feelings that are purely nostalgic, in the main it makes me feel really sick.
Like eating way too many of these awful giant tinned sweets that will undoubtedly show up somewhere around a christmas tree near you soon....

And today the sickness turns to anger on hearing the message from the so called Gods' representative on Earth - his homophobic attack, so perfectly timed to really take advantage of all the good catholic souls' in-built self flagellating sense of themselves at a time when he should really just be on outstretching his arms to the heavens in thankfulness for the birth of the child.
Really good of Gods' representative here on Earth to set back Gay and civil Rights about 50 years with one sentence.

If we do attend the carol service tomorrow night at the church where my boy was christened, and where my grandad was buried, it will be done wearing pink.

Wishing you all a very merry Pink Christmas and an extremely fabulously camp new year.

May God rain you with glitter.

And may his light be reflected by all that and glitter you can never wash off.


Hallelujah indeed

xxxxx

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