Next Christmas

Like him, I would not wish to cancel the religious aspect – although not a committed Christian, I do attend church occasionally, and always on Christmas Day.

When shopping in the supermarket at this time of year, seeing the queues of heavily laden trollies at the check-out, while I stand there with my hand-basket, I often wonder how much of what is bought ends up being thrown away and how many shoppers are spending money they haven’t got.

A blanket cancellation of Christmas is clearly not possible, but there are things that we, as individuals, can do:

1) use the local, independent stores – no queueing up in supermarket car parks, no long waits at the check-out;

2) if you don’t like the annual work party, don’t go to it. There is no law that says it has to be attended;

3) turn off the television and radio when those awful Christmas songs bellow out;

4) throw all the Christmas catalogues that land on the door mat straight into the wheelie bin;

5) try to reduce alcohol consumption – I recently heard that cases of domestic abuse increased by 30 per cent from Christmas 2011, to Christmas, 2012. Much of this stems from excessive consumption of alcohol.

I expect other readers can suggest further action that can be taken to make the festive season less stressful – there are another 12 months before we have to go through it again.

Andrew J. Potter

Cranworth Road

Worthing