I don’t like Christmas.

I never did.

Who knows, maybe having been a Christmas baby – well, actually, I was born on Boxing Day – had the reverse effect on me. And now that I’m getting older, it’s getting worse.

It’s difficult to explain. It’s not normal, for someone like me who enjoys writing, to find it so hard to express myself on this. Maybe it’s because the reasons are too personal to let everyone know about them.

As a boy, I do remember some kind of joy on returning home after Midnight Mass to open the presents that had accumulated under the Christmas tree. In 1976 and 1977, I delivered the Child’s Christmas Sermon and recall the disappointment of receiving a colourful book about birds as a gift on the first occasion, when I would have preferred one about football. I guess it was an early sign that I am not much of an environmentalist.

But, as the years rolled by and I entered my teenage years, Christmas started to close me up in my own shell even more than I am during the rest of the year. Once December starts, it is all hope and prayers that it will quickly be over.

I know I am not on my own.

In my first year as editor of The Malta Independent, I wrote a leader on the need to show respect to people who, like me, were not looking forward to Christmas for different reasons. I wrote about those who were away from their family and friends, those who had lost a loved one during the year and would be spending their first Christmas without him or her, those whose families had broken up and were fighting over the custody of their children, and those who just couldn’t bring themselves to celebrate, or perhaps did so with a smiling face but with a sad heart.

The response to that leader was phenomenal. I received many emails from people who shared my views, who felt better for knowing that with that editorial I had spared a thought for them, who were somewhat consoled to know that they were not the only ones who did not like Christmas. In a way, I was pleased that I had helped these people feel more human.

A very small percentage of people bother to write to newspapers, so having received some 20 emails following that leader was astounding. I wondered how many more were out there wishing that Christmas would go away.

One particular email is still engraved on my mind. I do not remember the exact words, but the person who wrote in had wondered why he was “expected” to be happy at Christmas when all he wanted to do was curl up under a warm blanket and sleep the day away. He just could not stand it that the people around him were forcing him to be all smiles and hugs when he just wanted to be on his own. And he ended his email by saying thank you to me because, for the first time, he realised that someone really cared enough to write a leader on sadness during the Christmas season, and particularly on Christmas Day.

I do not know what this man did that year, but I do hope that he was allowed to be himself. It makes things worse when others tell you “come on, cheer up, it’s Christmas”, or “have a whisky to feel good”, or “how can you feel lonely in a crowd?”

The more time passes, the more Christmas has become an artificial and superficial feast. The lights in our streets are lit more than a month before, a ruse used by shop owners to remind you that it’s time to visit their outlet, very often to buy useless or unwanted gifts, many of which are thrown away or forgotten after a few days.

Christmas cards have been replaced by emails and SMSs – so impersonal, especially when you know that the person wishing you well does not really mean it, that you are just one “number” on a list of contacts on a mobile phone.

And, another thing, I hate those Father Christmases hanging from balconies – they remind me of someone in despair, just like the opening scene of the film Cliffhanger. And those who have seen the film know how that scene ends.

Each year, we say that we have lost the true meaning of Christmas, and yet we do so little to change things. The fact that the Crib and Baby Jesus are losing their battle with the Christmas Tree and Father Christmas encapsulates the fact that we are just using the Birth of Christ as yet another occasion to make merry, rather than look for personal renewal.

We all have become like those innkeepers who turned Joseph and Mary away from their door as they sought shelter when she was about to give birth.

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