Cancel Christmas? About time, too!

The Sunday newspaper headline screamed: “Christmas cancelled”. “Hooray, yippee! About time too!” I screamed back, punching the air and whooping with delight.

No, I have not become agnostic, and no, the story behind the headline was not that government had any intention of denying the birth of Christ, but rather just rationalising the high number of public holidays we have.

Which is a jolly good idea for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that the good old days when every citizen took the day off on a public holiday have long gone.

Nowadays most public holidays just mean that people who work in offices and factories have the day off. All the others–shop assistants, nurses, police, garbage collectors–just keep on working. So, why indeed should we have holidays that just a precious few can enjoy?

But getting back to “cancelling Christmas” and why I am all for it. Well, for starters, as I have suggested in this column from time to time, Christmas as a holiday celebrating the birth of Christ has become horrendously commercial, and being widely abused.

We who call ourselves Christians may be tempted to feel pleased with outselves because while “we” don’t celebrate “their” (Jewish, Muslim or any other) holidays, everyone, whatever their faith or lack of it, celebrates Christmas with gusto.

Shops belt out commercialised Christmas carols, Santa Clauses ho-ho-ho themselves hoarse on every street corner, municipal workers pound the pavement demanding “Christmas boxes” from anyone they can intimidate, and every department store and corner café is festooned with tinsel.

But is this hype really furthering the spread of Christianity? I doubt it very much indeed. I reckon its making a mockery of what should be an extremely holy day. And many Christians also end up pandering to the materialism of Christmas.

So, I’m certainly in favour of depublicating (my word) the holiday out of Christmas, and for the government to treat it just as it treats Jewish, Muslim and Hindu holidays, because to people of those faiths, those days are sacred.

I would happily take a few days leave to celebrate Christmas, and that goes for Good Friday too. I can’t understand why the entire country has to shut down on that day. True, Christians regard its solemnity, but most of the rest–and not a few Christians too, I’d bet–use it as no more than part of a long weekend.

In fact, I believe Good Friday in South Africa is becoming less recognised as the solemn religious day it is and more for the fact that it is a day on which South Africans rush out like lemmings to kill themselves on our roads.

I suppose many Christians will get steamed up at the prospect of government wanting to do away with Christmas as a public holiday. They may think that the communists in government have won the day, or that government is anti-Christ. But all government is doing is asking why Christmas can’t just be a Christian holiday.

Sounds logical to me. I reckon it vital that we Christians regain the solemnity of the feast. And maybe, just maybe, this public holiday issue will be a fine opportunity to do just that.