Preparing For Christmas

We’re now reaching the last weekend before Christmas. And as with every single year in the past, the newspapers will be sure to find someone - usually a clergyman, to voice the complaint that the whole season has become nothing more than an orgy of spending and consumption, and to declare that they intend to 'drop out' and give the money they save to people who need it.

With equal certainty, this will then be matched by another voice, condemning such a killjoy attitude and insisting that we should join in the full festivities, grateful that even such a secular world as ours still gives so much to a major Christmas festival.

This little ritual is a regular occurrence because both voices strike a chord. Sometimes it really does seem as though Christmas Day, when it comes, is more of a whimper than a bang, and all the preparation and expenditure ends in a 'celebration' that for a lot of people doesn't amount to much more than a day in front of the telly, watching special editions of programmes they would have watched anyway.

At the same time, it's deeply built into human beings that from time to time they should push the boat out, and organise occasions when the economical gives way to the extravagant. To refuse ever to do this is not to remain sensible in the face of general foolishness, but to cast ourselves in the part of Scrooge.

It might seem that the answer lies in striking a balance, but the matter goes deeper than this. To know how and where to strike that balance, we need to experience a genuine sense of celebration; we need to know what the point of all the activity is, and what gives it meaning.

Otherwise, Christmas really is just going through expensive, if not time honoured motions, a case of perfectly pointless 'shop till you drop.'

Perhaps this Christmas season, amidst the financial woes of the world, we will think a bit less of the commercial and begin to focus more on our greatest and most meaningful gifts - family, friends, and the greatest gift of all - the one that arrived in a grotty barn on a star filled night.

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