There's Something Seriously Wrong with Christmas
'Tis the Season to be Jolly? Well, perhaps not...
Who knows, but back in the days when the old melody "Deck the Halls" was written, your chances of contriving a dose of frivolity at Christmas1 may have been better than they are today. Mind you, it's unlikely. The author of the lyrics was either on drugs or not on the same planet as his hammered contemporaries: "Don we now our gay apparel... Follow me in merry measure." Sounds more like the Mardi Gras.
You would have to abandon your reason to label any season of the year as a special time for being "jolly". And it would take an unprecedented leap of faith to expect jolliness at Christmas, of all times. There's a fair chance that the average person may not feel particularly merry at the festive season. "So here it is, Merry Christmas – everybody's having fun!" Everybody? Sorry, Noddy, but it just ain't so.
For some folk Christmas is about as welcome as a wasp on a bus. But those who grumble about the festive season are well and truly drowned out by those who like it, despite being condemned to endless reruns of White Christmas.
Christmas swaggers in (then staggers out) year after tedious year mainly because hype and tradition appear to offer a jolly alternative to the harsh realities of life. Though it proves highly unpopular, it's still worthwhile taking a closer look at the negative impact of the Christmas season. We should ask ourselves if it's worth all the fuss. And we should be big enough to face up to the answer.
Once Upon a Time, Long Before Christmas, there was History…
25th December: if you don't already know, the date itself serves as a warning that all is not well. If you travel to the misnamed "Holy Land" in late December and happen to come across shepherds watching over a flock, you’ll probably need to phone a doctor and a vet—it gets very cold indeed. Wet too. But even if Jesus had been born in winter there is no clear evidence to suggest it was in December. There are, allegedly, irrelevant non-Christian reasons why we ended up with 25th December. It was a significant date long before the Christmas festival began and predates the birth of Christ.
Although it's largely irrelevant in our modern secular world, it's probably still worth pointing out that the Christian basis for Christmas is threadbare, to say the least.2 There are plenty of sincere evangelicals who make an effort to put Christ back into Christmas, but historically he was never there in the first place. There's a big difference between Christmas and ancient Bible texts that tell us about the birth of Jesus Christ. We can say with certainty that the first Christmas happened hundreds of years after the birth of Christ. Let's think for ourselves instead of buying into whatever gets dumped on our laps.
Christmas is a highly dubious mix of Christian beliefs and non-Christian practices. Atypical Christian behaviour, like decorating trees for example, dates back to the days before Christianity became widely accepted. You may or may not accept that about 300 years after the birth of Christ the big 'church' of the day allowed established cultural traditions to get mixed up with legitimate Christian practices and beliefs. In time Christmas became an official Christian festival incorporating popular pagan (unchristian) customs that have continued to the present day.
In our present context and from a purely scholarly perspective nothing can seriously compete with the content of The New Testament. If you’re after the purest definition of Christianity, its practices and beliefs, then the New Testament is by far the most reliable ancient text available. Many millions of intelligent Christians read it daily and consider it to be an accurate guide, even after 2000 years of cultural diversification. It's true that it doesn't fare well in the hands of fundamentalist extremists, but we could say that about a lot of things.
Something's gone wrong somewhere. (A still from a Christian TV broadcast.)
This unrivalled source of Christian teaching has nothing to say about one of the major festivals in the so-called Christian calendar. The New Testament does indeed refer to the birth of Christ but we read nothing about the Church's far-reaching annual celebration of Christmas. This isn't about preferring one day over another. It's a bit bigger than that. There’s not one verse or sentence that teaches us to set aside a very special day to mark Christ's birth. This is odd, unless of course it was never celebrated in the first place.3 It seems the Christmas Festival has been added on. Does that matter to you?
Should it be celebrated at all? Is it important? Its origins, widespread appeal and substantial imperfections (see below) bother some Christians, and rightly so. When this world's in love with something you would think that the vast majority of Bible-based Christians might smell a rat. But few do. Why is this?
Church members and their spiritual leaders who welcome Christmas appear oblivious (or perhaps indifferent) to its questionable Christian foundations. When did you last come across a church that publicly questioned the validity of Christmas and highlighted the stresses and unchristian commercialism that stem from it? The annual involvement we see in our local churches strongly suggests they should bear some of the blame. Discuss it with your pastor if you're concerned.
True, in the overall context of church life it's a side issue, but it can't be ignored.
But we needn't dwell too long on Christendom's obsession with Christmas. When you think it over religion doesn’t matter much because the vast majority of people get bogged down in Christmas for reasons that aren’t remotely religious.
Conform or Fail
Uninformed or misinformed Christians tell the world, "Christmas is all about Jesus." They are sincere and their intentions are good. But the marked deficit in their post-Christmas bank balances tells a different story. From October to the hectic January sales the Christmas season is a moneymaking racket that bamboozles the population out of countless millions each year.
A rash allegation? No, it certainly is not. Just consider that UK Christmas shoppers will spend almost £9 billion in the week before Christmas Day. Just one week. That's over £53,000,000 an hour! In our contemporary world the Nativity scene would make more sense if The Blessed Virgin cradled a gleeful baby Santa chewing contentedly on a fat roll of banknotes.
Would you not agree that our minds are regularly manipulated and conditioned? Aren't we tirelessly enticed to spend, spend and then spend some more? And the pressure to do what everybody else is doing is immense. Who's really prepared to do whatever it takes to break free from the cycle? How many even recognise the notable drawbacks? Many are compromised by Christmas to the extent that they are incapable of acknowledging its serious side effects.
Let’s face it, at Christmas the little children—bless them—can easily get greedy. Who can blame them! They expect to open lots of gifts on Christmas Day. Mammoth advertising campaigns see to it that they know what they want. This Christmas many parents will once again spend a small fortune on expensive gifts that may well lie forgotten within a few months. Adults must conform or be considered a disappointment. Friends and family members would be incredulous if radical changes were made to the Christmas season. But change would be a good thing.
Recent research by a toy manufacturer (odd source) suggests that £1 billion is wasted each Christmas on children's toys. Why? 8 out of 10 children are "disappointed" with their gifts. This is all the more surprising when we learn that on average £378 is spent on each child. Maybe the waste is caused by friends and family who are clueless—76% don't know what gifts to buy for kids.
Rampant commercialism often results in challenging debt that can spiral out of control and take a long time to sort out. In the U.S. the average person can face around $1000 of Christmas debt. Naturally finance companies are tripping over themselves to cash in on this foolishness by offering “Christmas Debt Consolidation Loans” that promise to ease the burden. But nailing debt to the original debt is a short-sighted solution.
British door to door lenders can arrange loans for low income families to help them get over the Christmas period, but the interest can be shamelessly extortionate. In one publicised example £155 was paid back to clear a £100 loan. This is simply cashing in on people's misery. There's so much pressure on families to spend at Christmas that they willingly get into debt that can take a full 12 months to clear.
An independent UK company that deals with debt £10,000 and over recorded a 275% surge in calls due solely to the demands of the Christmas season. Generally UK household debt is rising at a faster rate than in the U.S. and most major European countries. The average UK household debt (excluding mortgages) stands at £8500. Over 8 million Britons are recognised to be in serious debt. We know all about the Credit Crunch.
A recent survey estimated that over a third of Britons would spend more than their expected budget at Christmas. The financial demands of the festive season are one reason why personal debt in the UK is estimated at £1400 billion. This essay was written in Northern Ireland where the average household is almost £7000 in debt. Christmas just piles on the pressure. And financial worries partly explain another Christmas problem.
Depression, Aggravation and Isolation
Many of us accept that Christmas should be a time for all the family, although nobody would be foolish enough to suggest we should rely on it for family bonding. We rightly consider ourselves privileged if we cherish happy memories of cosy family times around the tree opening presents. That’s fine, but there's another side to the story here.
There are those who have very different Christmas memories and each year triggers another wave of difficult emotions. There are many reasons for bad experiences at Christmas. Life comes with no guarantees at any time of the year but unhappiness can cut more deeply when expectations are unreasonably high. The Christmas ideal comes complete with an absurdly contrived cheerfulness. Why do we tolerate it?
These crazy heightened and unrealistic expectations saturate our newspapers, TV programmes and magazines (women’s in particular). But don't you agree that the harsh reality of day-to-day living in our modern society often paints an altogether different picture? For example, it's an uncomfortable thought that many will soon spend their first Christmas without a loved one. Life is hard.
The Christmas season is a prescribed and eagerly anticipated merrymaking that can quickly become a nasty mess when our real world dishes up more than its fair share of problems and heartaches.
We briefly considered the all-to-common pressures related to debt that's fuelled by unwise spending habits. Beyond doubt this is just one of many reasons why there are more suicides and serious bouts of depression at Christmas than at any other time of the year. The Samaritans receive more crisis calls at Christmas than at any other time of the year. Statistics show that doctors prescribe more tranquillizers and anti-depressants over the Christmas season. More people go to specialists with mental problems at Christmastime. Marriages are under more pressure during the Christmas period.
MORI UK polls have found that one in six says that Christmas is a time of year he or she dreads and, peculiarly, 11% of parents won’t even see their children on Christmas Day. It's ironic too that family togetherness over the Christmas and New Year holiday season results in a significant increase in domestic violence.
Is Christmas for Clones?
It seems that these glaring inconsistencies are insignificant to those who are heavily into seasonal cheer. Maybe they just don't care. Maybe they are blinkered. Maybe it's simply majority rule.
The real problem of Christmas lies in the modern individual’s inability to be an individualist. It’s true that we’re no longer brainwashed en masse by dubious religious dogma but it’s usually easier to go with the flow. Far too many are conditioned to conform to the classic Christmas template.
Surely as unique individuals it's time to start thinking for ourselves rather than fretting over the seasonally adjusted expectations of others. Go with the flow and you’re normal (and possibly depressed in debt!), swim the other way and you’re the oddball eccentric, a silly old Scrooge who lets family and friends down.
Ok, so the Xmasite blends in with the crowd. But what a price for convention! Race against the clock to buy, write and send off dozens of worthless cards. (There are folk out there who get cards from people they don't know! And even from people they don't want to know—they hate the sight of them.) Dig out the tree(s) and bags of decorations and clumped lights. Hope the children don't hear you curse under your breath while you grapple with last year's tangled knots.
Get out shopping for gifts before it's too late. Do you know what to get for each relative? What would Uncle Stanley like? What about a paisley scarf, (every bit as forgettable as The Queen's Speech)? Maybe Santa socks or a tie that plays Jingle Bells? What about Auntie Maud? You could always get rid of that brute-ugly ornament you were given last Christmas, guaranteed to keep children away from the fireplace. Or what about that repulsive bright purple cardigan you nearly abandoned outside the local charity shop?
Aren't there a lot of really special things to do at a wonderfully special time of the year?
OK, this is daft and cynical, but let's be fair and boil it down: Xmas isn't important. Really. Worse than that, it's actually harmful. Unmasked it's seen to be a powerful vortex that sucks us in and makes us the same as everybody else. It's ludicrous. Yes, perhaps Christmas really is for clones.
* * *
When the case has been made, opinions and facts shared, we can either sweep this festive shambles under the carpet or face up to the fact that there’s something seriously wrong with Christmas. It's found wanting in so many ways.
To sum it up then, Christmas routinely favours those with few problems and the least stress and inevitably puts more pressure on those who struggle to cope. Doesn't exactly fit in with the Christian gospel message. And we all have our hands in our pockets while rosy sentiment and big business kick the life out of common sense.
Christmas is thriving just about everywhere we go, yet it clearly has no lasting substance to justify its suffocating popularity. Year after year the present writer has it rammed down his throat. He wants to avoid it and do his own thing, but there’s no escape.
Merry Christmas? Give me a break!
1 "The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038, and Cristes-messe, in 1131" (Catholic Encyclopedia).
2 A number of online resources are worth looking at in this regard. There are religious websites out there that clearly lose the plot, but a few contain challenging and educational information. Just do a search for "pagan Christmas", or something similar. But you probably already have. Beyond doubt there are real issues with Christmas that clash with many biblical principles and historical, pre-Roman Christianity.
3 People who call themselvers Christians should think about the leading author of the New Testament who once came across a group who were busy making a big fuss over special days and seasons, just as they had done before they became a recognised church. He wrote to them and told them he was afraid for them because of their beliefs. What would he have to say today about the intense observance of Christmas? (See The Bible: Galatians 4:8-11, in the New Testament.)
