The obscenity of Christmas, and how to fix it

Last December a bunch of friends got together for our yearly Christmas lunch. This time we each put in $20 and sent a nice total to the Fred Hollows Foundation. And we felt good. No cards, no wrappings, no gifts, no having to be hypocritically delighted on receiving something that we didn’t need. We just had a nice time together.

And that was one little personal fix.

To do a bigger fix is probably impossible. The Western orgy of useless spending is embedded in our culture. There is no better expression of commercialism gone mad than the Christmas season in Australia. We know that there won’t be any snow (unless you jet off to Dubai for a treat – they’ve got an indoor ski-field!). It won’t be freezing cold, but we still pay poor guys to dress up in that suffocatingly warm Santa regalia. We will bravely face the massive Christmas roast and the puddings and mince pies, even if the temperature is soaring. We know that teensy particles of plastic are invading our bodies, but there’ll be new plastic everywhere, in decorations, the fake pine trees, the containers of every silly thing that we buy, even the sleeves around the Christmas cards, that depict glorious winter scenes relating to the other side of the planet

Australia might be multicultural, but somehow we are all sucked into this Christian religious frenzy of buying and eating and drinking. This has its tough side – the fatigue toll of the shopping, the little kids, exhausted and tantrumy, the credit card bill inexorably rising. The psychology geeks are yet to measure the mental toll of anxiety about whether we’ve chosen the right gift, or forgotten somebody (who might be hurt and resentful). Sadly, our materialistic culture tells us to measure affection by the money spent on gifts.

But there’s really nothing that we can do about this – it is all-pervasive – and starts earlier each year. If it did suddenly stop, that would be a blow to the economy, to all businesses, and a death blow to many small businesses. Armies of young school leavers look to those Christmas jobs for their financial survival. Christmas is an intrinsic part of the economy. Fortunately, there’s no danger of it all stopping, despite its dark side.

And there is a dark side. Road accidents and deaths increase at Christmas time. Statistics show that domestic violence goes up at during the festive season. There’s also an increase in heart attacks during this holiday period. It is generally recognised to be a stressful time.

Even darker, to my mind, is the way that the Christmas story has morphed from the humble story of the birth of Jesus, into this tacky process of tinselly extravagance. The Saint Nicholas story has morphed, too. St Nicholas, the original of Santa Claus, was a bishop in the very early Christian times, who helped the poor.

The legend is that he helped some impoverished young girls who had hung out their washed stockings to dry. He quietly put money into their stockings. That has morphed into the gross tradition of gift-buying – but not quietly, and not for the poor hence the tradition of the Christmas stocking. There are many depictions of Saint Nicholas – he wasn’t fat and jolly, but quite slim and seriously concerned about the under-priveleged.

In the time of Saint Nicholas, the 4th Century AD, that thoughtful man and others could see the poverty around them. In our time the poverty and desperation is seen, too, every day on our various screens. That is what is obscene about Christmas, that this desperation is visible, but ignored. Australians are expected to spend over $7 Billion on Christmas. Some of this is for necessary stuff, but much of it is unnecessary splurging. And that contrasts with what might be possible, if we addressed the needs of the homeless, of refugees, and further afield, joined in the work of the great global helping agencies like UNICEF.

Well, I know that it’s a pipe-dream, that we might change the materialistic culture into something more in line with the true message of Christianity, expressed in the work of that original Santa Claus, so long ago. If that were done suddenly – what a disruption to our economy! Alas, there is little evidence that this change is happening even slowly.

Still, this is the paradox of Christmas. Despite the stress, the frantic buying madness and all that, there is something very positively human going on. Everywhere, people are wishing each other well. The fantasies of flying reindeer, and all that, do bring joy to little kids of all ages. We do finally stop our busy-ness to spend time with family and friends. The jazz singer Blossom Dearie wrote a lovely song about friends just meeting each other at Christmas time. While I am not a fan of American culture, I do think that they got something right in Thanksgiving – a custom in which they just stop everything to spend time together – no present-giving, no garish decorations, just time together.

How to fix Christmas? Well. I think it’s unfixable, except perhaps by doing it on an individual scale, as my friends did last year – with a little personal escape, by putting some money into where it is really needed, and just spending time with our near and dear.

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