Should Christmas be over commercialised?

Dr. Ruwantissa Abeyratne

GIFTS: At the heart of Christmas is altruism. Christians around the world exchange gifts on this day. Shops in the West as well as in the East are stocked with toys and food, clothes and accessories. In the United States, consumers expect to spend heavily during the Christmas season this year.

The November 9-12 national Gallup poll indicated that 34 percent of adults think that they will spend at least $1000 on gifts. This is the strongest sentiment that has been seen in early November in at least four years. Between 2002 and 2005, only 25 to 30 percent of the people polled expected to spend that much. More North, in Canada, during Christmas 2005, Canadian consumers spent $804 each nationally. This was well above the monthly average of $555 for the rest of the year, excluding December.

There is no room for doubt this year too, Christians would keep up their tradition of giving and spending more during December than during other months of the year. This in turn gives way to the incontrovertible fact that Christmas has a commercial dimension to it. But then how commercialized should this sacred day be?

There are those who believe that Christmas is now big business. While the Christian calendar calls for a solemn four or five-week preparation to celebrate the birth of Christ, the "Christmas economy" overshadows Halloween, which is yet another money spinner in North America's dedicated to the mystique of the power of darkness.

Thanksgiving Day in the U.S, which falls in late November, serves as little more than a prelude to the greatest shopping weekend of the year. One of the reasons for Christmas to be such a commercialized time of the year is that people anticipate the season every year with increasing enthusiasm.

This is perhaps the reason why, In 1939, President Roosevelt moved the date of Thanksgiving back to the third Thursday of November with a view to expanding the Christmas shopping season. It has been said that, with the survival of many businesses dependent on Christmas profits and half of the annual advertising dollar spent on Christmas-related advertising, it is not surprising that for some shoppers Christmas spending is regarded as a patriotic duty that must be performed.

There is a certain moral legitimacy in the commercialization of Christmas which did not occur in a social vacuum, but became conveniently entrenched with increasing consumerism. In most societies it has become social culture where consumption for its own sake - regardless of need - is legitimized and even encouraged.

Excessive consumerism exploits religious beliefs and deep emotions to persuade people to buy. Often, religious strains are used in advertising . For example sociologists who specialize in behaviour modification have demonstrated that the strains of "Joy to the World" trumpeting throughout the shopping malls in December produce greater profits, and that "Silent Night, Holy Night" is even more prolific as a commercial tool.

This brings to bear the need to inquire whether Christmas should be exploited as a religion-sanctioned occasion for extravagant spending.

From an economic perspective, although excessive spending during the holiday season may be healthy for the economy in the short run, an over-commercialized Christmas comes with its own costs.

Preparations for observing the birth of one who came into this world in the poorest of possible forms, thus heralding comfort to the poor, are often overrun by the more materially and therefore financially attractive preparations to observe the coming of Santa Claus.

Extravagant Christmas spending means fewer dollars available for those authorities and agencies tackling critical social and environmental problems. One commentator put it well by saying that the loss in this context is not so much in dollar terms but in the sense of exploitation that many feel at Christmas, and the depression that follows when Christmas fails to deliver the happiness popular hype promises, and the ensuing guilt from being willing participants in a religious fraud, all of which rob Christmas of its power to renew the human spirit.

So what really is Christmas?

The word "Christmas" is a derivative of the old English Cristes Maesse, or "Christ's Mass" There is nothing in the Holy Scriptures to say that Christmas is a religious holiday nor is there any guidance in the book as to how Christmas should be observed. This lacuna has enabled various cultures around the world to develop rituals and popular traditions of their own for Christmas.

However varied they may be, these traditions and practices all underscore and demonstrate on a common basis for the spirit of Christmas, which starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and goes on till Christmas day (the four week period being called Advent).

The spirit of Christmas is essentially encompassed in the practice of giving gifts to one another. Christians traditionally exchange gifts to remind themselves of God's gift of his son as a savior to humankind. The tradition of exchanging gifts goes back to ancient Roman times where a custom existed that people give gifts to one another in order to bring good fortune for the New Year.

This dimension of hope and expectation of good things to come is especially relevant today as an unknown dimension of Christmas to people of the world who are looking at the prospect of lasting peace.

To many in North America, particularly in the United States and Canada, the Christmas season is heralded by the annual Thanksgiving parade which jointly celebrates the arrival of Santa Claus, a mythical saintly figure reputed to bestow gifts on the less fortunate; and the Feast of Thanksgiving, on which humankind offer their gratitude for all they have received throughout the year.

Christmas was first celebrated by Roman Catholics in 336 AD, when it was known as the Feast of the Nativity. The word Christmas entered the English language sometime around 1050 as the Old English phrase Christes Maesse, meaning "festival of Christ."

As for the enigmatic word "Xmas"it is widely believed that the word may have come into use in the 13th Century with the importation of the "X"which stands for the Greek letter chi, which is an abbreviation of Khristos (Christ). Scholars also believe that the "X" might stand for the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified.

Another mystique of Christmas is its association with a "holy"night personifying peace and tranquillity. The celebration of Christmas became heavily permeated with the notion of peace and depictions of the holy night of Christmas became popular themes in Northern European paintings from the 15th to the 17th centuries. These images became central to Christmas celebrations of the time.

Although historians cannot place the precise year and date in which Christians first began celebrating the Nativity of Christ, most scholars believe that Christmas originated in the 4th century as a Christian substitute for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.

Before Christmas was celebrated, the Romans honoured Saturn, the ancient god of agriculture, in a festival called Saturnalia which commenced on December 17. This festival lasted for seven days and included the winter solstice, which usually occurred around December 25 on the ancient Julian calendar.

During Saturnalia the Romans feasted, postponed all business and warfare, exchanged gifts, and temporarily freed their slaves. Many Romans also celebrated the lengthening of daylight following the winter solstice by participating in rituals to glorify Mithra, the ancient Persian god of light. These and other winter festivities continued through January 1, the festival of Kalends, when Romans marked the day of the new moon and the first day of the month and year.

The spread of Christianity over the next 1000 years saw the introduction to and observance of Christmas in the rest of Europe and in Egypt. Along the way, Christian beliefs intermingled with existing pagan feasts and winter rituals resulting in many long-standing traditions and beliefs of Christmas celebrations.

For example, ancient Europeans believed that the mistletoe plant held magic powers to bestow life and fertility, to bring about peace, and to protect against disease. Northern Europeans associated the plant with the Norse goddess of love, Freya, and developed the custom of kissing underneath mistletoe branches. Christians incorporated this custom into their Christmas celebrations, and kissing under a mistletoe branch eventually became a part of secular Christmas tradition.

The Holy scriptures provide no guidelines that explain how Christmas should be observed, nor do they suggest that it should be considered a religious holiday. Because of the lack of biblical instructions, Christmas rituals have been shaped by the religious and popular traditions of each culture that celebrates the holiday.

Traditionally, the sacred Christmas season starts with Advent, which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and continues to Christmas Day. The sacred season ends on Epiphany, January 6.

During Advent, Christians make preparations for the commemoration of Jesus' birth on December 25, and also look forward to the Second Coming of Christ. Each of the four weeks symbolizes a different way in which believers perceive Christ: through the flesh, the Holy Spirit, death, and Christ's judgment of the dead.

The Advent wreath, which consists of four candles anchored in a circle of evergreen branches, originated with German Lutherans; the tradition has been adopted by many churches and families. At the beginning of each of the four weeks preceding Christmas, Christians light an Advent candle as they say a prayer.

The symbolism of Christmas, particularly in its original setting, brings to bear the real significance of the event as a harbinger of peace and happiness and the heralding of understanding and compassion particularly of those in power toward their fellow beings.

Most scholars are of the view that Christmas originated in about the 4th Century where Christians began substituting the more tranquil practices of Christianity for pagan celebrations of the winter solstice.

Before the celebrations of Christmas, on December 17 each year, Romans had a festival called Saturnalia for Saturn, the ancient God of agriculture, ( to which the modern day feast of Thanksgiving may have some link). This feast lasted a full seven days including the winter solstice, where the Romans feasted, postponed all warfare and commercial business, exchanged gifts and temporarily granted amnesty to their prisoners and freed their slaves.

Over the next 1000 years, Christianity spread to the rest of Europe and to Egypt. Some of the vestiges of pagan beliefs and Christian traditions as they existed in earlier times still remain, for example, the belief in ancient Rome that the mistletoe plant bequeathed life, fertility and peace and brought relief from sickness and ill health.

Arguably, the three most powerful symbols of the Christmas holiday, from a non religious sense, are Santa Claus, the Christmas tree and Christmas cards. The legend of Santa Claus was brought into the United States by Dutch settlers in the 18th Century. Sinter Klaas, as Santa was known in Dutch folklore was personified as a tall dignified and holy figure riding a white horse through the air.

Also known as Saint Nicholas in Germany, Santa Claus was thought to be accompanied by a no-nonsense elf called Black Peter, who punished obstinate and disobedient children. This ancient and stringent demarcation between good and bad, reward and punishment, later gave way to the true gift of Christmas, depicted by a jolly, fat, saintly old gentleman who brings happiness to all humankind.

Almost contemporaneous with the popularity of Santa Claus was the German Christmas tree, which was transformed by the Germans from a pagan symbol of fertility to a symbol of hope and rebirth. What was reportedly the first Christmas tree in England was a gift given by Prince Albert to his wife Queen Victoria in 1841.

The Christmas tree was popularized by German immigrants to other parts of Europe, The United States and Canada. In the present day context the Christmas tree is decked with candles ( to signify light and hope) food ( in streamers of pop corn for instance) ornaments of angels and other symbols of peace and harmony and whatever items of relevance.

It is not uncommon in North America to find gigantic Christmas trees at public squares and shopping malls decorated only with white doves and ribbons to signify peace and unity among the peoples of the World. The practice of exchanging Christmas cards became a widespread custom in the 19th century as a tool of communication and still remains one.

The overarching significance of the Christmas card to understanding among people is that it acts as a tool to re-establish contact by one person with another, with a message of goodwill and wish for happiness. Often, a Christmas card serves to diffuse hostility and misunderstanding harboured over the

year, bringing whole families together at Christmastime.

Christmas is also a time for introspection; of self-examination for self worth. It is a time for dissidents to embrace the message of peace that Christmas brings. We may live in a glamorous world of achievement and material ostentation.

We may individually want to be identified with our own accomplishments. We are in the throes of a new millennium which we constantly hope would be one of peace and heightened international cooperation.

One which would make our experiences of the previous millennium - of futile wars fought, the needless loss of innocent life, and the nagging feeling of self-deprecation of not giving enough to our less fortunate fellow beings, go away for ever. A new era that would make us all serve the world without the prejudice of hatred and bigotry.

This is an era where we must be aware that civic consciousness primarily means people in power and in charge should instil in others who depend on them greater knowledge and awareness of international cooperation and sharing, in order that they could offer their specialized skills to the world, while fully understanding the contribution they are making to their fellow beings.

We must nurture our boundless spirit of giving, particularly to those in distress. When it comes to giving, we must not distinguish between our own people who are thrown out of a building which is destroyed by an explosion, and those in Honduras who are rendered homeless by a mudslide. This quality is a great consolation and blessing to humanity which carries the message that we do not, and indeed should not shut our doors to those who genuinely need our help.

We must start a new life and family amidst an embodied diversity of a multinational culture reputed for its familial spirit of belonging and ever present hand of friendship. This expectation is particularly important to us, having experienced an environment of glamorous uncertainty and suspicion wrought by misunderstanding and discord.

Therefore, whatever Christmas might mean or not mean to the various religious denominations and beliefs in our country, the fact that it stands globally for peace and joy should be enough for us to celebrate December 25, with hope in our hearts and the expectation of the joy that is to come.

Perhaps it is a religious day for families and not for retail sales!

(The writer is Coordinator, Air Transport Programmes International Civil Aviation Organisation, Canada)

Let's keep Christmas commercialised

David Chilton

Celebration: Every year about this time, there rises a hue and cry about the "commercialization" of Christmas, accompanied by impassioned pleas to get back to the "real meaning" of the celebration. Too much time and money, we hear, are spent on the public side of the holiday-the hustle and bustle of shopping, the lavish decorations, and the often insincere displays of seasonal piety.

Meanwhile, the true spirit of Christmas gets left behind. Some even argue that all public displays of Christmas are inappropriate.

Every Christmas season seems to spawn a new series of lawsuits charging that the First Amendment is imperiled by the appearance of manger scenes on civic property, or by the singing of carols by the local high school choir.

I recall hearing a spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union claim that the very message of Christmas itself was being violated by any public recognition of its existence. What we need, he said, is to remove Christmas from public life completely, and allow it to become once again a private, personal expression of religious sentiment and family values.

To him, apparently, the essence of Christmas was like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting-a household gathered around a piano drinking hot spiced cider and singing "Here we go a-wassailing," while an apple-cheeked matron, her eyes sparkling with reflected light from the roaring fire in the hearth, loads the festal board with heaping platters of roast beef, steamed vegetables, and candied fruit.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, so far as it goes. It just doesn't go far enough. While it would surely be a mistake to claim that commercialization is the essence of Christmas, such a statement is rather close to the truth. From the very beginning, Christmas was regarded as a public event. It was never regarded as a private matter, still less as the sentimental remembrance of childhood it has become.

In its origins, Christmas was not only public, not only commercial-it was downright political. One of the most well-known scenes of Christmas, commemorated in countless greeting cards and church pageants, is the coming of the Wise Men to honour the baby Jesus.

We should note at least in passing the public nature of the occasion. The Wise Men were public figures, and the arrival of their caravan into the capital city of Judea caused a considerable uproar.

Far from treating their mission as an issue of private sentiment, they announced that the Child whom they came to worship was none other than the rightful ruler. (A popular rumour held that a coming world emperor would arise in Judea; one Caesar took it so seriously he actually made plans to move his capital from Rome to Jerusalem.) As for the issue of commercialization: it should be obvious that the Wise Men went Christmas shopping.

Gold doesn't grow on trees, and frankincense and myrrh require human labour to produce. Merchants have been capitalizing on the holiday since the very first Christmas. But there's more. For the story of the Wise Men's visit doesn't end with their presentation of gifts. St. Matthew's account goes on to tell of King Herod's jealous rage at this threat to his tyrannical rule. (Herod had several family members murdered, including his own sons, when he perceived them as rivals of his power.) Herod realized the political implications of Jesus' birth, and ordered the massacre of all male babies in the vicinity of Bethlehem.

As we all know, Herod missed the One he was after; and the story ends instead with the death of Herod and John the Baptizer's proclamation of Jesus as King.

The early Christians were much concerned with the public aspects of the Incarnation. Indeed, they were martyred in droves, because they refused to privatize their faith. Even their creeds, proclaiming Jesus Christ as the one and only link between heaven and earth, were far from being abstract theological treatises.

That proclamation had a political impact that shattered forever the old pagan pretension that merely human rulers were "divine." Christians and non-Christians alike have benefited immeasurably from the resulting restraint on governmental tyranny that is unique to Western civilization.

I rejoice in the commercialization of Christmas. It signals the one time in the year when our world approaches sanity. The brightly lit houses, the evergreens garlanded with bulbs, the carols that provide the musical background for even our most hectic shopping-all creation comes alive with the message that the shift from B.C. to A.D. changed the world forever.

(Courtesy: www.americanvision.org)