I love Christmas. From mid-November, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas and Frank Sinatra’s Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas are mainstays on my playlist and our family tree is usually erected around the same time.
I love the change of pace. And I love cosying up under blankets with my children for the first two Home Alone movies and with my wife for that undisputed Christmas classic, Die Hard.
However, one aspect which has never enthralled us is the commercialisation of Christmas.
The late theologian and philosopher GK Chesterton said: “There are two ways to get enough. One is to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
Stressing oneself silly to buy more stuff for people who have all they could possibly ever need seems completely out of sync with a day named after the birth of a homeless, poverty-stricken refugee in a stable.
And for a lot of people, stress looks likely to be the theme of this festive season.
As Omicron becomes the dominant variant in this interminable pandemic, new regulations have been unveiled for Scottish businesses.
Traders for whom the pandemic has been most costly must now pay to install screens and reduce crowding at a time when being busy is critical to their survival.
In the same week it was announced businesses in Dundee and across the UK have seen two-thirds of their Christmas bookings cancelled, adding up to millions of pounds in lost spending.
It is a bitter irony that a season of celebration and hope associated with birth could be contorted by the threat of loss of livelihoods and possibly even lives.
A Christmas wish that Dundee continues to prosper
While there is plenty of bad news, the Greek word gospel translates as “good news”.
And I must admit to dialling out of the melancholic tones of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Prime Minister Boris Johnson in favour of a more promising frequency.
In Luke’s gospel, Jesus’ first words to his disciples post-resurrection were “peace be with you”.
At no other point has a message of peace been more necessary than now to pacify the dashed hopes of retail staff, taxi drivers, waiters and waitresses fearing the prospect of another lockdown.
For Dundee, the last two years of despondency contrast with a growing optimism that has seen the city rise from the ashes of de-industrialisation.
Dundee still rates higher in the indices of multiple deprivation and tables for foodbank use and drug deaths than we might prefer.
But there is a visible resurrection of barren sites earmarked for the next phase of commercial and cultural transformation.
Dundee waterfront is now home to more than 1,000 jobs paid above the living wage threshold since Social Security Scotland took up residence alongside the Port of Dundee, Sleeperz Hotel and V&A Dundee.
Many more opportunities are set to follow in 2024 when the Eden Project and 4,000-seat capacity eSports arena proceed.
And this physical resurrection will ricochet throughout the rest of Dundee as living standards continue to rise.
While the short-term economic prospects look bleak, I hope the resurrection of the baby whose birth we celebrate this weekend will be mirrored in the good news story of Dundee in 2022.
