if you could?
A deliberately controversial title 
How many people welcome Christmas with open arms, I wonder?
It's purportedly a Christian festival based upon a pagan one.
However, in the UK today (a secular society) and a lot of the West, the God being worshipped appears to be money.
When I was a child we were working class.
In those days (60s/70s) goods were far more expensive as the mass manufacturing we see today of cheap imported goods didn't happen.
Borrowing money from banks etc was far more difficult than it is today.
We didn't have much and didn't get much for Christmas.
Also, my mother became cyclically depressed every Christmas and because of all the arguments and misery during my childhood Christmases, I get depressed too.
There are other causes of the depression - bereavement, most of my life spent in deep anxiety about how I was going to pay for presents and spending time in mass gatherings I hated.
I went shopping today and the shops are mad, completely mad with people rushing around buying stuff that the recipients may not even want.
This is what Mind says:
What do you think?
Does it cause more misery than happiness?
