HEAD2HEAD: Michael Parsonsand Róisín Ingledebate the issue.
YES: Michael Parsons says we need to move on from the unnecessary, vulgar and decadent splurge of self-indulgence that is the reality behind the Christmas tinsel
Good King Wenceslas looked out. And got a right old land. No snow lay round about - not deep, not crisp, not even. And when a poor man came in sight, he was gath'ring winter bio-fuel.
It's over. The snowman has melted. This goose is cooked. It's time to move on. Red-nosed reindeer? Chestnuts roasting on an open fire? Hanky-panky underneath the mistletoe? Shepherds watching their flocks? Sleigh bells in the snow? And, for crying out loud, lords-a-leaping?
Codswallop.
Much of the "tradition" was created by the 19th century's über-haus-husband, Prince Albert, the Bavarian consort to Queen Victoria. Generations ever since, aided and abetted by Hollywood and Madison Avenue, have lapped up this Anglo-Saxon concoction of kitsch.
It's as surreal as those hardy-annual images of toned Australians sporting skimpy swimwear and Santa hats enjoying a "motherland" turkey-and-ham lunch on Bondi Beach. As outdated as spear-carrying "natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger" huddling into the compound of a district commissioner's residence to hear the BBC Empire Service broadcast the king's cut-glass Christmas message from Sandringham: "I speak now from my home and my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert or the sea that only voices out of the air can reach them."
Look around your living room. See that card from Aunt Maggie? Yes, the one depicting pint-sized, yodelling carollers outside a snow-clad English coaching inn watched over by a smug, moustachioed burgher and his amply-padded matron who look suspiciously like Willie O'Dea in top hat and loden and Mary O'Rourke wearing a bonnet and sable muff. Now be honest. The image bears about as much relation to contemporary Irish life as the wall-paintings in Tutankhamun's tomb. We need to find new symbols and rites for whatever it is we're supposed to be celebrating in mid-winter.
When the tills fall silent tonight, the people of Ireland will conclude the biggest-ever shopping binge in our history. Every retail outlet between Grafton Street and Broadway has been blitzkrieged.
It is a largely self-indulgent, mostly unnecessary, overwhelmingly vulgar, and utterly decadent splurge which has lasted for months.
But who will shout stop? There's no point relying on the older generation because they, too, have been swept along by the tide of rampant consumerism.
You'll have seen them looking flustered in Dunnes. Granny wondering: "Wouldn't that pink princess dress look gorgeous?" The garment will certainly surprise little Eimear who aspires to Dolce & Gabbana. And look! Grandad's buying a set of wooden, hand-painted farm animals. He can visualise Shane, "the dote", on the hearthrug staging a reconstruction of life on the land to remind him of "the home place". But "home" is low on the list of words Shane uses to describe a damp farmhouse near Tuam.
And he'd much prefer "Kill Taliban 3" for his PlayStation.
Wouldn't you think the elderly would have more cop-on? After all, as they never tire of telling us, they grew up in an Ireland blighted by the Emergency. When the "school run" meant a brisk, barefoot walk or, for a privileged few, a lift on an "ass and cart" - the SUV of its day. A "treat" was a sprinkling of rationed sugar on a bowl of stewed apples bitter enough to pucker the lips of a ploughboy. A "surprise" meant a shrivelled clementine in a (darned) stocking at the end of a brass bedstead.
So what ever happened to those fields and villages "joyous with sounds of industry"? "The romping of sturdy children"? "The contests of athletic youths"? And "the laughter of comely maidens"? Alas! The crossroads are humming to the roar of boyracers' souped-up Toyotas and the Mercs of blighters tearing down to corporate golf jollies; the villages have been emptied by commuting; the playing fields have fallen silent while children - pale as netsuke figurines - are ferried around like little emperors; and the maidens have gone for a pampering "chocolate wrap" and a "grapefruit-and-apricot scrub" at the spa before shopping till they drop.
Tomorrow we celebrate the birth of someone who would have admired "people who valued material wealth only as a basis of right living . . . who were satisfied with frugal comfort and devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit". He'd need more than a Garmin to find his way in Ireland today.
Abolish Christmas? . . . . . . We already have.
Michael Parsons reports from Kilkenny for The Irish Times.
NO:
Róisín Inglesays there is still a Christmas magic that creeps in through the mess and seeps into your bones
I know this is a debate and my job is to get all evangelical, but I'm not going to try to persuade you. Christmas isn't something you can be persuaded about. Christmas gets in on you, seeps into your bones like the smell of mulled wine and the wrapping paper five for 50 cent, and your favourite bauble smashing on the floor and carrots for Rudolph and for God's sake get the ladder, the bloody fairy's on crooked.
Persuade you about Christmas? I am not going to even try. And I'm certainly not going to pretend Christmas isn't without problems. The gifts you'll be taking back to the shops that are already wrapped and waiting under the tree. The credit card bill in the post you will try to ignore. The family skeletons taken out of the cupboard for their annual dusting down. The loneliness you felt when he didn't call. The hole in your heart the first Christmas without her. The festive drink that was one too many, the mince pie that gave you indigestion, the turkey you burnt in 1983 and seasoned with tears even though the children told you everything was going to be alright.
Christmas can be the most messed up time of year. On the quays children shake cups of coins at drivers who pretend not to see them even as they hum along to Joy to the World. On main street at midnight the path is pounded by sequined stilettos skipping over pools of vomit on their way to meet men in suits who can't see straight.
A woman falls out of a taxi, straight down she goes like that time when the Christmas tree toppled over, and the driver carries on towards the next fare. The man in hospital for the past five weeks who hasn't had a visitor and don't think he's expecting one tomorrow, chance would be a fine thing.
And yet. There is a kind of magic in the mess. On Grafton Street the giant chandeliers twinkling like, well like great big chandeliers that have been strung across the street for no other good reason than they brighten up our lives. Parcels tied with ribbon, bad carol singers, hugs at the airport, stockings hung with care, gold chocolate coins, tangerines, cheating at board games and the children's faces when they register that Santa has actually managed to get that bike down the chimney.
A friend went to her child's first nativity play the other day.
Because they haven't been totally outlawed, not yet. And her son was busy being a shepherd but halfway through he stuck his hand up, just as the grumpy sheep were getting restless and Joseph was threatening to walk off.
The teacher asked what he wanted and he said "my parents are singing, they are not supposed to sing". Which was them told. And that's Christmas. Grumpy sheep and quarrelsome wise men and a Virgin Mary who keeps forgetting her lines.
That's Christmas. Pat Kenny on the toy show with a small girl telling him not to kick the baby. Gay Byrne on Grafton Street on Christmas Eve and then up to the Shelbourne for a hot whisky and thanks for the memories, Gay.
Switzer's window, Brown Thomas bravura, a snatched hour surrounded by bulging bags in McDaid's, the lights going off on the Christmas tree and has anyone seen the Sellotape and don't come in can you not see I'M WRAPPING PRESENTS. The annual row about midnight Mass. Watching the fists flying on Eastenders and your mother saying "now why can't we be a nice normal family like that?"
If you are having trouble seeing the point of Christmas I urge you to visit your local record emporium and lay down €20 on Sufjan Steven's Christmas singalong, a box of musical good cheer to warm even the most Grinch-like hearts. Stevens, a man who detested Christmas for years until he had something of an epiphany in 2001 has been writing and recording Christmas songs every year.
You don't have to believe in anything to be moved by his rendering of Away In A Manger and Silent Night and O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
And then there's That Was the Worst Christmas Ever! and Get Behind Me, Santa and Did I Make You Cry On Christmas Day? (Well You Deserved It), a clutch of unsentimental songs that attempt to make sense of that nebulous "Christmas feeling".
Abolish Christmas? You might as well abolish giggling or singing or spud guns or those skinny balloons that can be modelled into poodles.
You might as well abolish living. Keep Christmas, that's what I say. Keep it as well as you possibly can, even if that just means a candle in the window and a song in your heart and goodwill to all women and to all men, especially the one in the ho-ho-hospital. Merry Christmas.
Róisín Ingle is an Irish Times journalist.
online: join the debate @ www.ireland.com/head2head
Last week Mary Cleary and Margaret Martin debated the question Are men victims of domestic violence to the same extent as women? Here is an edited selection of your comments:
I am a male social worker working in the area of domestic violence for over 20 years and specialising in the area for eight years. There is no doubt that the extent and severity of violence by men against women far outweighs that by women against men.
I am aware of situations where women are abusive to men but usually when the man is dependent, due to disability for example, leading to a power imbalance against the man. Such a power imbalance is still rare.
I believe that the people who argue that the level of violence against men by women is as significant as that by men against women have a distorted view of the causal power and control issues at the heart of violence in intimate relationships.
I am absolutely in favour of support for men who experience violence, but not as a weapon in the "backlash" against groups that work with women. It is deeply ironic that spokespeople for men accuse women's groups of political bias when theirs is so plain to see.
Kevin Webster, Ireland
In a world where public awareness of issues is directly related to costly advertising, publicity and advocacy, where funding for women is 100 times greater than for men, where one in three women report while only one in 20 men do so, and where for a man to admit being a victim is perceived as the ultimate wimpish behaviour, isn't it actually amazing that in 10 years Amen have managed to get Government Ministers and even Women's Aid to acknowledge finally the reality that women, as a gender, far from being demure, innocent, vulnerable victims, are fully capable of abusing men?
Logic and the proclaimed ethos of equality now calls for positive discrimination campaigns (which the feminist lobby have cultivated for a generation) to proactively develop and roll out, going forward, significant State-funded supports for groups supporting men and fathers and advocating their issues.
Now if we could all move on to dealing with relationship conflict without the distraction of the loaded gender weapon, we might all develop more mature, mutually respectful and challenging relationship between men and women as partners!
Liam Ó Gogain, Ireland
The court statistics speak for themselves. Applications to the courts for Protection, Safety and Barring Orders are predominantly sought by women who suffer abuse and domestic violence perpetrated by their male partners.
Maureen Kelly, Ireland
As a male victim of a violent female partner in the past, it truly saddens me to see Margaret Martin's position. In the past when I sought help I was very glad to come across Amen. There was hope, I thought.
However, that was short-lived, as I could not find a phone number listed on the site to talk directly to anyone. This is obviously down to lack of funding, something which Margaret Martin and the myriad other support groups for women never have to worry about. When it comes to support for men there is a massive sexist divide in this country. Obviously, it is in part brought about because of men's lack of willingness to talk about the violence against them. Admitting being beaten by a woman is a massive no-no to most men.
In the end the violence against me got so bad that I had to report it to the Garda. As sympathetic as the guard I spoke to was, it was clear that unless I was willing to stand up in a witness box and testify against my partner nothing can be done.
Anon, Ireland
Is this even being posed as a serious question? Domestic violence is rife in Ireland, and to even ask this question belittles the plight of thousands of women who are intimidated, threatened and abused within their own homes for years upon years.
Lizzie Kinross, Ireland