Merry Christmas and all the jazz

This year I feel a bit funny about Christmas. Or at least, I'm not particularly excited. Yes ok, I am 26, so the hysteria over the fact that Father Christmas drank every last drop the sherry we left out for him by the fireplace, but only ate half of his mince pie subsided quite a long time ago. But, I feel a little bit cynical about Christmas (I didn't want to say that but there you go).

Last year was the first year I spent Christmas apart from my family. I was on a beach in Goa with my best friend Carla, our new but already dear Keralan friend Manu, and two lovely Swedish girls Lou and Emelie. On Christmas Eve we all went to a party on the beach. We had met Manu (22 years old) in a small village called Thazhappu in Kerala. After much deliberation and talking his Mother round, Manu had decided to travel with us to Goa. It was the first time he had ever travelled outside his state in India. He was Christian and had never spent Christmas apart from his family either so this was a new experience for all of us. Christmas Eve was great. We watched fireworks on the beach and then went to the party. Lou and Emelie went to bed after an hour or so. Carla, Manu and I carried on drinking and dancing like fools until the early hours. Manu could not stop grinning. When we asked him what was so funny he said it was our dancing. Fair enough, we do dance like idiots. But, without trying to sound too cheesy, his grin was the best thing about that night and that Christmas maybe even. He had never been to a party like that and had never danced with girls (In India boys and girls don't really mix until they are married and girls don't usually hang out in social groups in public).

When we first arrived in Goa I don't think Manu felt comfortable. He was genuine and friendly to everyone but some people gave him frosty receptions and eyed him suspiciously. It was news to Carla and me. In our three weeks travelling around the South of India we had been received with beautiful heartfelt friendliness everywhere we went. Maybe our western wallets did have something to do with it but I like to think that wasn't all. We had heard of the caste system, sure, but we had never experienced the hostility of it in action. In fact, I rather naively thought it was old skool and was not really inherent anymore. In one hotel on our way to Goa, Carla and I were given a room with no further questions (payment to be made when we checked out), whilst Manu was treated coldly and had to pay for his room upfront. When we questioned why our friend had to pay now and us later, Manu looked embarassed and asked us to leave it.

On Christmas Day I was not with my family and I received an interesting and alternative gift in the form of 'delhi belly'.  In between being sick I managed to also get make-up remover in my eye. It would not stop stinging and I could not see properly so Carla, Manu and I got a tuk-tuk to the Pharmacy. The Pharmacy was full of skin-bleaching products. It struck me how strange people are. Always striving for the opposite of what we have. Indian ladies followed the Bollywood poster craze for Asian females so pale that they looked like strangers to their own side of the sun, where Brits and other Westerners lay on the beach covered in tanning oil, singing their skin to get rid of their pale winter-pallour. What was so good about the other side?

Anyhow, this year I am at home in London and Christmas seems different. A very good family friend died recently. It was totally unexpected. This year my friends are dreading Christmas, the first Christmas without their Mum.  My friend said to me that she wished she could just skip Christmas altogether.

I love the festive cheer and good spirits that seize most people at Christmas. I also love the idea of cherishing our loved ones and rejoicing in the family. And I would be lying if I said I wasn't in it for the food too. I love the food. Perhaps I should mention religion too, being the original and sole purpose of Christmas and all. But I am not religious (apart from feeling a bit jolly singing Christmas carols at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve - the one time a year that I attend church). Christmas has become more of a festival for all these days, it cannot escape anyone's attention in England, religious or not. We can all choose how to spend our Christmas and I am re-thinking mine.

Knowing that my close friends will be having a shit Christmas, illuminating the hole in their family, I feel a little different about eating a massive dinner and then vegetating languidly on the sofa watching Christmas film re-runs and passing the Cadbury's Roses tin between my sisters and parents on the sofa. I will still do my fair share of this. Not much has changed really. But I will cherish my family all the more, and my friends and all my loved ones. I think we should cast a wider lens on our sense of community at Christmas, rather than just embracing our immediate family leaving our homes wide open for no-one else but an estranged commercial coca-cola Father Christmas. The need to pump our money into buying lavish amounts of food and excessive gifts for each other just highlights the greed that seems to increase year by year.

Yes Christmas is about sharing and giving, so shouldn't we be doing that on a wider basis? I know lots of people do, so maybe I am really talking to myself. It's loosely linked to what I experienced in India. Why do we all lust after what we haven't got? What's so good about that? When we have all that we need right here. Consumption does not satisfy. Changing our skin colour does not satisfy. We lust after being better. None of us feel good enough. We buy each other and ourselves gifts and pamper ourselves with gourmet food to try and satiate a need. The desire is never-ending and ultimately void of meaning. Maybe if we realised that many of us do not need these things and used our money and resources to turn around and face the community we would meet that need. Things are not arranged, there is no plan. People die unexpectedly, people lose their homes, people fall into pits of depression and forget how to be excited about life and how to connect. We all experience some kind of despair. Why not share our communal experiences more often. Stop hiding them and competing to appear the best.