First go read a good post on Christmas Lighting. Be soothed by the art that is to be had from the worst decadence, sugar coated sweetly by innocent Turkish Delight. Do that before you gape at my impression of Christmas and deplore what the hazy steam of beasts and the glow of stable lamplight has turned into.
I don't get out much
So my collage is OTT, and a right party-pooping misery-guts dumpload on festive Lighting, I know. My eyes are old and sore and worn. I struggle with Hirst but can just about manage Tottenham Court Road station by Paolozzi (see below). Forgive me, I thought we were saving the planet this year and cutting down on our energy bills?
I got my impression of this year's first proper Christmas buzz last night, in my coastal city, when my son took me to see "The Good Liar". Kind of ironic. (He has the streak of a pathological liar running through him). Don't really know what he wanted to tell me by insisting I see it; he had already seen it once, last week. I am used to him needing to watch a film more than once (not infrequently three or four times in short succession) for him to process it properly. He often gets stuck on details or misses the plot. This time he said he had been shocked by the denouement, and it shocked him even more to hear I was not so. For me, the general gist, the theme, and most motives were quite old hat,
on account of:-
- A) as an older person I grew up on Post-WWII and Cold War mystery-thriller-spy movies, so I more or less saw all of the plot twists coming as obviously as when (to quote Julian Barnes in "The Man in the Red Coat") you know, when they bring a gun on stage in scene one, it's going to get fired in the final scene of the play;
- B) knowing Helen Mirren was not going to just play a dimply-dumply woman conned by an old geezer clearly scoring on anybody's radar a null for charm.
And last but not least: - C) I am a woman. I know how we are not taken in by such charlatans unless we are desperate; and elegant women are not.
Anyway, go see the film (entertaining enough), spend more time with your own children (entertaining enough - especially if you have an autistic one; it is useful to watch a film with any autistic person I think: they see stuff you otherwise miss and as long as they are willing to discuss the film afterwards - often not unfortunately - this can add to the experience); go out in the dark (exciting!) and see the lights (entertaining enough if you don't have a migraine to start with), but do wonder whatever next.
Guinea-pigs would definitely be my limit
How would you feel about having a cute and colourful rodent for a Christmas feature in your town?
I don't know. Still recovering from my evening out in front of the cinema.
But if Disney and tinsel, glitter, and gaudy Christmas lighting is your thing, think of visiting Hampshire, UK instead of Oxford Street for a change if you want to see the Lights.
They put up a Marmot - and you're either going to love or hate his name: Marmite! - instead of a Christmas Tree in Hampshire. Because aren't trees just too boring?