Trampolining dogs in snow..

All these Christmas ads have got me thinking about what is important to me at this time of year. Don't get me wrong, I love a trampolining dog as much as the next person but I have started to wonder what the real message is behind these campaigns (apart from the obvious marketing desire to persuade us to purchase our Christmas food and gifts from only one retailer). Christmas advertising pulls on our heart strings and creates You Tube sensations that have us waiting in anticipation to see what will grace our screens each festive season.

Yet what is the pattern behind these ads? Why do they have the power to impact our emotions?

We watch perfect TV families sharing food and laughter and we are smitten. We think of our own lives, our own families and we begin preparations because WE want a perfect Christmas too.

Yet for some, this season does not bring sharing and laughter.

For some, there is only loneliness, hunger or abuse.

Sorry if you are feeling that I am bringing the festive spirit down, this is not the point of my writing. I just wondered what it might be like to watch these perfect Christmas ads if my life were far from perfect? Perhaps then, I may not feel so festive. Perhaps then, I may feel even more isolated from society than usual because perhaps, it might seem that everyone in the world, everyone except me, was having a perfect family Christmas.

Perhaps this year we could think of some those people.

What might it be like if every person, of every faith, spread a little kindness.

Perhaps donate time or money to help make somebody else's Christmas one to remember, for all the right reasons.

Perhaps then, we might discover what is really important at this time of year.

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