Listening to the radio this morning I was somewhat annoyed to hear that some Tesco shop in England was selling Easter Eggs – already. Given the a-religious, crass commercialization of Christmas in which, once again, any Christian message was almost completely drowned out by extortions to spend, drink, eat and party amidst tales of Santa, reindeers and tinsel, I can’t say that I was surprised.
What does surprise me is that Christians don’t make more of an attempt to reclaim Christmas and indeed Easter for Christians. Both events are central to the Christian story and fundamental to how Christians perceive themselves and their faith. Instead both Christian celebrations have been subverted by retailers with the active acquiescent of Christian and non-Christian shoppers alike. The upside of course is that with more people spending, the economy grows by a fraction of a percent. The downside however, is that it pushes everyone just a little more into debt and further detracts from what should be a celebration of a central Christian message.
Most religious holidays the world over have been encroached to some extent by secularism and commercialism, but none, in my view, as much as Christmas in the West. It is hard to imagine Muslims secularising Eid or Hindus turning Diwali into a shopping fest. And Yom Kippur is hardly an excuse to run riot in the malls and clubs.
The reason given each time for turning religious festivals into commercial ones and bringing them forward months is that the punters want it. Well we, the punters, are fed up with it. We’re going to buy our Easter eggs at Easter and not before.
I’m not religious, and I see Christmas as basically a winter solstice celebration, which makes perfect sense from a secular point of view. A little cheer at the darkest time of year…
Going into debt to buy Christmas gifts is never a good idea, however, most people can buy gifts within their means. Gifts can even be useful. I find that buying them for people I’m close to forces me to really think about what might make them happy, and not just materially; to really give some thought to what their current interests and needs are. Christmas isn’t really any more commercial now than it was when I was growing up in the 1970s, and people used to say exactly the same things then.
Yes, I can see that Christmas is well placed to take over that role of mid-winter festival – particularly way up in the northern hemisphere where nights are long and cold and the days are short.
But none the less, Christmas is a Christian festival which has been subverted by commercial interests for private profit at the expense of those who want to celebrate it – for whatever reason, Christian or secular.
We are encouraged to buy our kids, siblings and friends gifts that the majority of us can not afford particularly in the current economic climate (how many times have we heard that such and such an item priced £295 is ‘the perfect Christmas gift’ for your kid).
Perhaps I am just mean or simply too poor to join in the commercial side of Christmas, but it sends a really bad message to parents and children alike – that is if parents love their children they will spend a lot of money on them. In the end either children feel unloved and let down or parents feel broke and resentful. Not a happy ending either way.
Nobody is making anyone spend that much on a gift. I don’t watch much TV and I don’t know what the pressure is like if you’re a parent, but it seems to me that the nature of advertising is to try to get you to spend money, and responsible adults know how to filter it. There are all kinds of bullshit messages in advertising and the media, and everyone knows that you have to take it with a grain of salt.
I just enjoy the pretty lights and the buskers and spend within my budget, just like I would at the grocery store or when doing any other kind of shopping.
And, I don’t know. Maybe you meant the “poor” thing in the abstract, but if you (in particular) are broke right now, isn’t it because you just bought and renovated a house? And that’s not really poor, you know? Poor is when you’re eating baked beans and boxed mac and cheese for the last week of every month because you ran out of food money, and you’re having trouble paying the rent and utility bills.