i've been doing my best to ignore christmas this year, but it's creeping up with ominous inevitability. of course, i've been to a few christmas parties and get-togethers already, but they've been remarkably un-christmas-y, with just the obligatory "merry christmas and happy new year" on parting, if that. last night was the first christmas family gathering (janette's side, for her brother and sister-in-law who will be away on christmas day), but even then there was almost no mention of the 'c'-word, which suited me fine.
i'm certainly not alone in being disenchanted with the whole christmas thing. to me, it has become about as far removed from the 'real meaning' of christmas as you can imagine. i'm not even sure if i agree with the idea of having a holiday to celebrate the birth of jesus - apart from the dubious origin of christmas as the 'christianisation' of a pagan solstice festival, i have a strong feeling the apostles and early believers would have found the idea ludicrous if not blasphemous. the celebration of the gift of jesus is for every day, not to be relegated, as it were, to one day a year (two days including easter). of course, that's exactly how it turned out - jesus is conveniently ignored by most people apart from christmas and easter (and increasingly even on those days), just as he is ignored by many church-goers during the week. on the other hand, you could argue that those people would ignore jesus the whole 365 days of the year, so having two days to bring attention to him is better than none. but i think that's confusing things, because christmas and easter are not primarily 'evangelistic' days (ie. with the purpose of 'spreading the gospel') but days of remembrance for believers. and if that is the case, i can't see any justification in having a set-apart day for christmas, either for believers or as a public holiday (assuming, as is the case, that we live in a secular society).
be all that as it may, there's no ignoring the fact that christmas is a big thing in our society, especially for kids and the retail business. and it's not inherently a bad thing to have a day of giving gifts to the important people in your life. what is bad, in my opinion, is that it has become a time of consumer feeding-frenzy, in which the only consolation to the pressure and stress of getting gifts for everyone else is the loot you'll get yourself (though that's usually disappointing, one of the reasons, i'm sure, for the family 'unrest' that often occurs on christmas day).
it takes a huge amount of imagination, ingenuity and effort to come up with gifts that don't buy into the consumeristic mindset, but that all takes time which most people in our rat-race society don't have. the challenge i would like to set, then (for myself as well), is to match dollar for dollar (at least) the money spent in retail outlets for christmas with donations or gifts to the the most needy in the world. one of the ways to do this is to shop at tear australia's (arguably) the world's most useful gift catalog. apart from that, a couple of excellent organisations to support are data (debt aids trade africa) and oxfam.
hope your christmas is filled with love and the joy of giving.