Merry Consumerism: The Fall of Christmas

I used to be excited about Christmas. There were carols to sing (and money to collect for singing), people to visit, parties to attend, gifts to buy and of course, gifts to receive. It was always a blur of excitement, chatter, exchanging of gifts and gossip and catching up again with people who were back for the holidays. It was pure, innocent and childish fun.

Now twenty-five, single and jaded, it doesn't make sense anymore. My circle of friends has changed; it's difficult to reminisce over Christmases past and lives lived with people who were not a part of it. The excitement of buying gifts is overshadowed by thoughts of whether the gift is good enough, expensive enough, or whether the intended recipient would have bought me something as well. And there's always the frightening thought of being caught out and receiving a present from someone who was not on my list.

But we never realised a baby born one blessed night
Gave us the greatest gift of our lives

It's funny that with all the great articles, stories and shows about finding the true meaning of Christmas and getting into the spirit of Christmas, none of them actually focus on the baby that was supposed to be the reason for it all. True, Christ's coming was all about love and forgiving, and He was God's gift of salvation to us, but all these things aren't really the main reason for the season (now that is another increasingly overused and annoying phrase).

Another funny thing that is happening is the great uproar over how we shouldn't use the term Christmas (rather, use X-mas, or happy holidays), why there shouldn't be nativity scenes, and how we should all be politically correct, and unreligious. It seems that just as Christians once (supposedly) hijacked the Winter Solstice celebrations for their celebration of Christ's birth, Christmas has been hijacked again by Santa and the mainly non-believing world, giving rise to great Jesus vs Santa debates and anecdotes.

Maybe I'm being a regular old scrooge. I'm not excited about Christmas trees (what an awful bother), carols are overplayed and old, mistletoe makes no difference because no one's going to kiss me anyway and really, if I never receive another useless candle or bauble or bar of chocolate, it's not going to hurt me anyway. It's all marketing at any rate.

We were the reason that He gave His life
We were the reason that He suffered and died

For every birth there is a death. The celebration for this birth, for this new life, doesn't make sense unless put in context with the reason of His death. But no one wants to remember a death in the midst of a happy celebration of life so all we remember to talk about is how God came down to earth and became a man, give a little teaser of why, but never mention the rest of the glorious story. Besides, we have bunnies to do that a few months later, don't we? (I miss plot bunnies, but that's off the point.)

To a world that was lost He gave all He could give
To show us the reason to live

Maybe it's a little too much to swallow when someone tells you that a seemingly illegitimate baby, born to a supposed virgin will give us a reason to live. What reason's that? Is this an anti-abortion advertisement? But nothing's really as it seems, and I'm sure a fat, jolly old man that can circle the world in one night, delivering gifts to all the world's good children (note the word good and the word children - maybe I've given up on Christmas because I'm neither good or a child anymore) makes more sense. Well, it certainly promises more than a baby who grows up and dies, doesn't it?

Therefore, ceteris paribus, merry consumerism and a happy new year.

Lyrics used: We are the reason by David Meece