IT’S CHRISTMAS...

Afonso Almeida Brandão"

We realize that life is really fun when, as soon as we open our eyes in the morn ing, we remember something we feel like doing. We forget about that “no man’s land” period when, with our eyes still closed, we try to figure out if it’s light outside and if it’s raining or sunny. Zip, we jump out of bed in two seconds and start whistling. It doesn’t matter what the plan is — it could be the day we’re going to travel around the world, or simply the day we’re sure the postman will bring us a letter. Now, at this Christmas time, all we have to do is believe that one of Santa’s little angels came to pick up the envelope we left by the chimney on the night of the 24th to the 25th. The important thing is to have expectations... to believe that that day will be different from the last and, if possible, even better. We need expectations, that’s the conclusion I’ve reached. And surprises — because for there to be surprises, we need people who know how to surprise us, and that’s the best thing of all. I remember (or is it just a feeling?), that news and events were savored one at a time — the first day of school each year, the morning when the little mouse left a coin in exchange for one of our teeth, the arrival of a cousin, the first day of Christmas vacation, Christmas, the morning when we hoped that the beans planted the day before would already reach Heaven, like the one in the story. A wedding, preparations and everything, would last for another two months... And as soon as we “finished” one event, we would start anticipating the next one, already marked on the Calendar. The bad things also lasted much longer—the separations, the fights, the death, and the mourning. We consume sensations much more quickly these days. We only have time to think about Christmas on Christmas Eve, and if our mother calls to remind us, we forget our own birthdays. The weeks go by quickly, and if going to the dentist no longer gives us nights of nightmares — thanks to the anaesthetic, it’s true, but also to the fact that we can’t waste too much time thinking about it — the arrival of a friend is also “dispatched” with a hurried dinner, because tomorrow everyone has to get up early. All this just means a challenge to the imagination, we have to invent more surprises per minute — for ourselves and for others — or reinvent the old ones. Don’t say you can’t, because just look at what advertising does. Whenever you think no one else will invent a way to make you take your eyes off the road, off the pages of a magazine or newspaper, or off the book you’re reading in front of the television, someone will find a way to make you look. Just apply the imagination of creative marketers to your daily life and relationships with others and you will see that you will jump out of bed every day with a new enthusiasm. If you suspected that in your mailbox, instead of all that paperwork advertising supermarket prices, there was a slice of toast made only from the middle, with a loving note from your boyfriend, or flowers from your husband, or simply a copy of a sports newspaper, would you say that you would not do without your alarm clock? As a last resort, buy one of those Advent calendars — that’s when marketing imagination arrived and now, behind each little window there’s a chocolate, or a toy, because no one gets up just to see what the drawing was that day anymore. Having arrived here, all that remains for me to do is to finish by wishing our Readers, Subscribers, Advertisers, Dear Collaborators and Friends, in general, a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year for 2025. To everyone, in a word, HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

2025/12/3