Not just one Christmas

Which Christmas are we celebrating this year?

In our secularised society, Christmas has long ceased to be mainly the feast of the Nativity of our Lord. Modern society has adopted a multifarious approach to the event.

At its core, Christmas is, of course, the feast on which Christians remember and celebrate the birth of our Saviour. That meaning is becoming increasingly obscured, replaced by the commercialisation and secularisation of Christmas.

Jesus himself, whose designation of Christ has lent the feast its name, has been relegated to a sideshow by the ubiquitous figure of Santa Claus (himself based on a popular saint, though this is widely regarded as a trivial footnote to Santa’s position as official spokesman for seasonal commerce).

The prevailing understanding of Christmas has little to do with that momentous birth 2000 years ago. While society may still pay lip service to Christ’s birth as the “reason for the season”, it is not really the birth of God that is being observed, but–to caricaturise–a rollicking good story. Instead of experiencing the grace and peace of Christmas, we mostly hear those strident bells, jingling all the way.

Practising Christians will, of course, remember and celebrate the birth of our Lord. For some, this will be the single important dimension of the feast. Most Christians, even those of devout practice, will also be caught up in the more secular patterns of Christmas.

These secular patterns, to some extent, incorporate Christian values. Christmas often is one of the rare occasions when families do come together. It is the one time of the year when most people do strive to exercise the qualities of good will and beneficence, these essential Christian traits that should be practised all year round.

But there is a potentially ugly underbelly of Christmas. The secularised Xmas (and we are using the term Xmas advisedly here) is about parties, gifts, excessive consumption, maxing out the credit card. For many, reflections on the meaning of Christmas are commuted to researching the latest fashionable action toy or hip boy band–perhaps understandably so, for these are the pressures of our society. Asceticism is not everybody’s cup of tea.

Christmas has been usurped in other ways too. Some town councils, typically in westernised countries, blithely embrace Christmas as a celebration of consumerism, but fear that its Christian connotation–its reason for being, after all–might offend religious minorities. Often this has incorporated attempts to rename Christmas and to eliminate its Christian meaning. Without that meaning, however, exactly what is being celebrated?

It is fair to presume that this approach has less to do with sensitivity towards others than with a backlash against Christianity.

Ironically, Christmas seems to be coming a full circle. When the Christian faith began to assert itself in Rome in the 4th century, it virtually usurped the winter solstice pagan festivals, supplanting these with the feast of the Nativity, right down to the date.

Now that Christianity, as a social phenomenon, is in decline, quasi-pagan societies are reclaiming the feast (substituting the sun gods of old with the gods of mammon).

As Christians, we are causing no affront by engaging in the secularised celebration of Christians, within the limits of suitable moderation.

However, in our celebrations, we must beware of letting the Xmas season–with its “Season’s Greetings” and “Happy Holidays”–expropriate the Christian feast of the Nativity.

Let’s be sure to put Jesus first this Christmas