Snow way! The African Christmas gets stranger

O Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Have you looked at the Christmas decorations in the shops this year? There’s some kind of messed-up cultural wind-change going on out there. There are things happening that I don’t understand.

By and large, over the years, the styles of Christmas decorations have remained fairly static. There has not been much movement or revolution within their festive ranks. They could be fairly neatly divided into three categories, namely:

So those are Christmas decorations. That’s how they’ve been rolling, for the past 27 years. Last week, however, I had a bit of a Christmas decoration trauma at The Riverstone Mall.

Riverstone, in recent times, is where I have found the oddest of happenings, anyway (people standing all over escalators assuming no one is in a hurry enough to want to pass them; clothing shops opening before 8am as if they sell breakfast, etc).

It has been the single-most best place to raise one of those ‘Where will mankind decide is the best place to sell this essentially uncategorisable object?’ dilemmas.

(See also: charcoal, logs and ice-cubes at petrol stations, eggs in the dairy section of supermarkets and so on.)

So there I was, half-heartedly wondering whether to walk into Jet and ask for a croissant with my coffee - decision: no, they just open early in case you need a new bra on your way to work – when I was sent reeling by the temporary ‘Christmas Stall’.

Have you seen what’s out there for Christmas 2011? The Christmas paradigm has shifted, my friends. There’s a second wave of philosophical thought on the Christmas decoration front happening right now, and we are all going to have to deal with it sooner or later.

It seems that someone, somewhere, has decided that the African Christmas lexicon – previously a familiar roll call of Santas, stars, angels, hearts, meat, church and booze – is in dire need of change and it now includes SNOW.

Yes, ‘snowflakes’ are now being sold around to form part of your Christmas decorations. You get them in packs, so that when you’ve put your fake tree up, all with its basic decorations, you sprinkle your ‘snow’ all over.

‘To get the real feel of Christmas’, as it says on the packet.

Now, hold it right there! Just. Hold. It. Right. There! You see, I turned a blind eye when we adopted the whole Santa thing. In fact, I turn a blind eye every year, when he ‘appears’ in the red and white, fluffy, super-hot outfit which was clearly designed for the northern hemisphere, where it’s freezing cold around this time.

But NO, somebody had to install the snow too. "Oh but the children around here are quite familiar with snow in the Christmas films anyway, so all we’re doing is making it real for them" I can hear most of you mumble. Really? So now we’re bringing telly to life? Good luck in bringing… You know what? I’m not even going to go there.

So yes, I find the idea of fake snow to complete the fakeness of our Christmas ridiculous. However, something just doesn’t sit well with the ‘Santa’ at The Gables either.

But what does this sudden ‘snow’ Christmas all mean? Does it make us a more conforming society? A more stupid one? Does it mean anything at all? And is it actually cleverer if it doesn’t mean anything?

I don’t know, dear readers. I’m afraid I don’t know at all. But it does mean I can play around in fake snow this Christmas, and so can you. As to how much more fakeness we have to put up with as a society - I hope Santa gives every one of us the answers.

As for me, all I’m saying is, whatever it means to you, MERRY CHRISTMAS! With love, from me, to you.

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