Life

Nuala McCann: Gaze at the stars when Christmas's consumer craziness seems too much

LOL Surprise! Dolls are just another sign of the monstrous rampant consumerism that is stalking the planet. It is capitalism gone crazy. And I’m as guilty as everyone else

LOL Surprise! Dolls hook into the YouTube unboxing craze, where people are filmed unwrapping things
LOL Surprise! Dolls hook into the YouTube unboxing craze, where people are filmed unwrapping things LOL Surprise! Dolls hook into the YouTube unboxing craze, where people are filmed unwrapping things

IT’S Christmas in case you’re off on planet Mars. I wish I were. Hello red dwarf, p**s off Santa. You do know, said he with whom I live, that Voyager I is out there?

Apparently it just fired some thrusters after 37 years. No, I don’t know what that means either but Voyager 1 is now more than 13 billion miles away in interstellar space... just travelling on and on as it has done since the 1970s.

He has the wonder of a small child on Christmas Eve. I wish it were infectious. He lost me at Voyager. We are all in the gutter but one of us is gazing at the stars.

The other has written a dozen lists, is wondering how to make Brussels sprouts taste of something other than wet school dinner greens and is wasting valuable brain cells weighing up the pros and cons of bringing the car into the supermarket car park because at this time of year, people would axe you for the last parking space.

Once, someone drove straight at me and kissed my bumper in a Glasgow kiss way. It was no smooch.

I’m a peace-loving, yoga-loving, bread-making earth mama. I’m not over it yet. Of course I backed down – I’m also a convent school girl, it’s in our DNA.

But hey, Christmas is not what it once was.

Yet we are very blessed. We have a son who really doesn’t want anything for Christmas. He’d just like his mother to quit the frazzle.

“I’m fine, no worries, Ma,” he says.

He’d not say no to a quarter of floral gums and the next series of Game of Thrones, but the latter present is really for us.

We’re indebted to his generosity of spirit.

We love it. We adore it. Game of Thrones?

Roll on lashings of gratuitous sex and violence and the odd yell of “Cushendall beach,” and “Ballintoy harbour” – it is Christmas after all.

In our house this means I may have to sit through Diehard. What a sacrifice. But we shall also perhaps watch Groundhog Day and smile at the cheesy bits... well one of us shall smile and the rest of us shall turn on the secretly smiling one and say: “Ha, you smiled, ha it’s so cheesy.”

Then, I shall make them watch Liar Liar because it makes me cackle and they just about tolerate Jim Carey.

Then we’ll all agree that Patrick Stewart as Scrooge is the best Christmas Carol ever, shove over Kermit and the Muppets.

I know it’s Christmas when I’m watching Tiny Tim “God bless us everyone”, the fire is flickering in the grate and all that mad running about is over. And it has come to pass that one of my favourite moments is in the chapel on Christmas Eve when the children sing Away in a Manger and the night outside is still and dark and starry.

Oh, bring it on.

At least the days of hunting for that “must-have” Christmas toy are over. This year, that means LOL Surprise! Dollies that cost £10 a time and come all wrapped up in a little surprise plastic ball.

There are 45 of them and they are aimed at small children who love surprises and parents at the mercy of Santa. They are today’s version of the Teletubbies – my brother queued to get those and we are forever grateful – and the Cabbage Patch dolls.

Apparently LOL Surprise! dolls hook into the YouTube unboxing craze – where people are filmed unwrapping things.

Oh the excitement, oh the build-up and oh, what’s in the parcel? Clearly, we are not talking half a dozen pairs of black cotton fresh socks and a can of Lynx Jungle guaranteed to bring out the beast in your man.

LOL Surprise! Dolls are just another sign of the monstrous rampant consumerism that is stalking the planet. It is capitalism gone crazy. And I’m as guilty as everyone else. Oh double yeugh to all that.

But just remember how small we are in the great scheme of things. And when you feel you are about to have a meltdown and scream, “stuff the turkey”, roll your eyes and remember this is a first world problem.

Then take someone you love by the hand and go out into the darkness and gaze up into the starry night.

Look for Orion’s Belt and the Great Bear and the Little Bear. Somewhere out there millions and millions of miles away Voyager 1 is gliding silently through interstellar space. And isn’t it truly a wonder?