I am sure you remember the excitement of Christmas Eve, counting the seconds until you can run downstairs to find a pile of presents waiting for you, under the Christmas tree!  

Each year parents run around every shop in the Highstreet, ticking off each item on their children’s detailed Christmas list just so that their children thank Santa instead of them. After that, parents must spend 4 hours cooking a lavishing, five-course lunch for their children to gobble it all up in 30 minutes. In fact, in 2021, £1,108 was spent per person in the festive season for everything that is needed, of which approximately £388 was spent on presents.  

And the cycle continues each year for ever! What is the point? Just because one day, Saint Nicholas decided to one day give gifts to the poor children in Turkey, now everyone must gift gifts to children!  

However, now think back to your childhood, when you would count down the days, making it feel like forever! The excitement of preparing the gifts and imagining what Father Christmas would give you. Putting out cookies and carrots for Santa and his reindeer, trying to stay on the nice list. Promising yourself to stay up until midnight to see him, but never managing to hold up for that long. But then also the happiness you feel, the love, the joy, all at the same time. Running faster than you knew you could to the Christmas tree, your parents smiling at each other, knowing that they managed to make this magical day special for their little child. 

Even the happy singing of the carols and preparing for Christmas shopping proves how humanity can get together for once and create something so magical. And that is the main point of Christmas, when the whole community celebrates together acting as one big family. All filled with excitement when preparing for the festive day. Actually, there have been a few correlations found between your happiness and Christmas time as it activates previous, related feelings in your brain. 

Of course, there are many different ways for celebrating Christmas. Such as, in Germany, hanging Advent Calendars are extremely popular (which also was adopted by other countries such as England). As well as in Europe it is common to decorate fir trees, and in Mexico there is a tradition of giving poinsettias.  

Why would we want to stop this? Why would we want to turn Christmas around just because it takes a bit of work? Can you imagine the 25th of December being just a normal day? It would be as if the Grinch had finally managed to steal Christmas!