Outside of the Christian Churches, very little remains of the actual Christmas celebration. Yes, there are still carol singing events, concerts with Christmas themes and TV programs that touch upon the original intent, but for the most part, this is forgotten. It is simply a time for retailers to tempt you to open your wallets or rack up debt on credit cards or worse (such as payday lending), and spend. Then spend some more, no matter what. More recently, the festival has been invaded by foodies and their sybarite friends.

On Monday night at midnight at a large shopping mall in Sydney, a dozen or so people were crushed and five ended up in hospital after balloons filled with gift cards were released from the ceiling. The intention, of course, was to promote the shopping season with a fun give-away. But it ended, sadly, in a crushing melee of shoppers desperate to get their hands on a prize.

I think this sums up what Christmas has become, and why the Churches should try to reschedule the whole event to another time of the year. Let the pagans have their traditional winter festival back, allow that to become a handmaiden to consumerism, then quietly go back to basics.

So on Christmas Eve, I leave you with this poem by another of my favourite poets, Thomas Hardy.

Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth!

The Oxen

Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock.
“Now they are all on their knees,”
An elder said as we sat in a flock
By the embers in hearthside ease.

We pictured the meek mild creatures where
They dwelt in their strawy pen,
Nor did it occur to one of us there
To doubt they were kneeling then.

So fair a fancy few would weave
In these years! Yet, I feel,
If someone said on Christmas Eve,
“Come; see the oxen kneel,

“In the lonely barton by yonder coomb
Our childhood used to know,”
I should go with him in the gloom,
Hoping it might be so.