This week we were given the two opposites of Christmas with TV shows on C4 ‘The World's Most Expensive Christmas’ on Tuesday and last night ‘Christmas on the Poverty Line’ on the benefit channel (Channel 5).
All through the C4 show, I was asking myself why you would spend this crazy money was beyond me. What can you say when someone would splash £250,000 on Christmas decorations. The mega-rich spending obscene amounts of money on expensive baubles to boost their self-worth that is my theory. The extravagance revealed by the programme is beyond normal people where limitless wealth can buy you a £22,950 USB memory stick (it’s encrusted with diamonds) and you can get a designer Christmas cracker to put it in but maybe you should put two so everyone is a winner.
Some PA working for a rich Middle East family who may or may not spend 36 hours in their London home over Christmas. The designer hire to decorate the house with an expensive Christmas make over was asked would there be enough room under the tree for the presents. Maybe they plan to put a full sized golden elephant under there.
Looking at my £5 star decoration on top of my £129,99 Christmas tree (reduced to £29,99) in an after Christmas sale maybe I should aspire towards the £615,000 top of the tree star in the programme for my tree. I wonder how much it would be after Christmas in the sales.
Christmas is a costly time of the year for anyone even the rich so what about those at the other end of the scale. It’s not pretty and I should know having been a cash strapped parent myself. I wouldn’t say we were poor there is always someone poorer. At least we had a home, warmth, food and what we could afford under our tree and family of course.
This documentary ‘Christmas on the Poverty Line’ explores the sacrifices they have to make to ensure their families have the best time possible. Those featured include Lancashire couple Kevin and Karla, who are unable to work because he is her full-time carer, and have taken to searching free gifts on social media or the bins. At the end, they are happy to get through Christmas without owing money to anyone.
We also see a family from Cornwall with five kids, a winter wedding, and Christmas to be funded by doorstep loans not free money it all has to be paid back with interest over a number of weeks. The husband works but is on a zero hour’s contract not the most reliable way of earning a living.
Been there with the loans thing with the loan company Provident. If my memory serves me right, a Christmas £600 loan with £300 interest so I would have to pay back £900 over 49 weeks. A woman in Blackpool Karen is facing her first Christmas on benefits after a lung condition prevented her from working and she was worried about Christmas and her kids. She entered some competition to win a free Christmas hamper, which was given away by some ordinary member of the public.
Not the out and out benefit cheats or those playing the system we normally see but it does little for some on social media. They have computers why don’t they sell them, she smoking, is that a flat screen TV just some of the crap I came across.
Something that stood out was the kids and their understanding of the plight there parents were in. Writing out lists for Santa with one girl saying she was called names such as “dossers”, “skanks” and “tramps” just because they haven’t got the latest Nikes and another girl put on her list a nice chicken dinner.
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