Christmas? Bah! Humbug!

I have mentioned before this that I have an antipathy to Christmas. I have no argument with those who wish to believe that there is a religious, and highly spiritual, meaning to Christmas. My hackles tend to go up at the vast largesse that is expended.

The people that spend vast sums on Christmas do so because they are bent on celebration. It is not enough to have a multitude of lights or enough food to appease the appetites of a marching army. A celebrant has to spend vast sums on gifts that will, very likely, be less appreciated than the anticipation of receiving them.

It is those sums of money that will oppress the borrower for another twelve months—perhaps more. If they are lucky, the debt will be cancelled in time for another splurge next year.

So the cycle goes on.

Those that are celebrating will tell you that they are validating their belief in the birth of the baby Jesus; that these sums represent a sacrifice that they are prepared to pay in order to show that their hearts and intentions are pure for the coming year.

Is that so? Is it really a sacrifice?

The stress of preparation, not just in the realms of purchasing but also in the work involved in decorating, cooking and wrapping, is just a small sample of the sickness that is the festive season.

The marketing and advertising people have a field day—it is the time when they can sell almost anything to anybody just by telling you that it is necessary to have it for a successful Yuletide.

Buy the festive detergent that will make the stocking you put out for Santa brighter than anyone else’s.

An element of one-up-manship never goes amiss in such situations.

How can your child possibly live another year without the ‘Miley Cyrus Twerking Kit—complete with Robin Thicke Doll’ the lack of which will make your offspring a laughing stock at school?

It is nonsensical.

The degree of debt that people will rack up in order to satiate the demands of the credit companies is staggering.

It is a ‘must have’ culture for people who don’t have. People who are struggling to pay their day-to-day bills and feed the children.

Keep up with the Jones’ or be mocked.

Spend or be damned but, then, be damned anyway.

In all this, what happened to the spirit of charity? Real giving; that tenderness and sympathy for the less fortunate?

All over the World there are people being killed and mutilated; there are children dying of starvation and disease.

For a few days, every winter, we stuff ourselves with all the good things that we can lay our hands on. We drink to excess.

We sit back to watch the Christmas programmes on television, that are yet more recycled dross and mental pap, with stomachs stretched and bloated.

We kill ourselves with excess.

Is there any thought to stretching out a hand to help those who are desperate for help. People, human souls, who yearn for something—anything, to eat. People who could be saved with minor medication that we think nothing of; things that are taken for granted.

People—persons, who yearn for clean water instead of sipping what they can get from filthy streams, from the liquor that forms from rubbish tips that stink with the foetid odour of decay and those who have no water at all.

Christmas is really a time for thinking of others.

I do not believe that Jesus was born on the 25^th December; I do not believe that he was born in a stable or that his birth, and start in life, was viewed by shepherds and wise men.

I believe he was born and that some day should be set aside to recognise that idea.

I believe that the pagan festivals attached to Christmas should be set aside and recognised for what they are.

Christmas trees and lights are fun. They are pretty. It is nice to give presents and it is nice to receive presents. It is wonderful to have friends and family visit as it is at any time of year.

But we have forgotten what it is all about.

We have forgotten what is at the root of the celebration.

We have become victims of the corporate desire to make profits. Santa and his bag of presents has hypnotised us into a divergent belief.

The Reindeer are as mythical as our good will to all men.