Thursday 3 December 2015

No Religion At Christmas



Apparently nobody bothered to tell the hordes of shoppers in the local city centre that there is a recession on, it has been just as busy as any other Christmas around here and i thought that i might be spared the jostling this year as everyone else stayed at home and explained to their children that Santa is feeling the pinch and their stocking may feel a bit lighter this year.
What i do notice as i walk around the town centres is the Santa's, snowmen and red nosed reindeer's and the lack of the very reason we do all this every year.
Now i have never bought into the whole religion thing, i place it in the make believe box alongside the Tooth Fairy, but it does seem strange that we celebrate the birth of Jesus without actually bringing any attention to Jesus himself.
We may spot the odd hastily thrown together nativity scene in a few shop windows but generally it is snow scenes with snowmen, Santa and elves in workshops making toys.
The truth is that Christmas is all about the presents and decorations and any ideals that we do it all to celebrate the birth of Jesus is ludicrous. Maybe that is the reason but it has been lost into the midst of time and it is just a give and receive present fest, i am sure that what supposedly happened 2015 years ago doesn't enter the mind of any of the queues snaking around the City Centre.
I am certain that the Church know that without the present giving ceremony and cute plastic snowmen, Christmas would be a dud and hardly anyone would care about it so they keep a low profile about what it is really all about and kid themselves that we all do it because we want to participate in the birth of the baby Jesus and celebrate the biggest day in the Christian calendar.
We know otherwise and they know otherwise so we both keep to our side of the line and play along nicely. We don't mention it is just an excuse to get presents and they don't ruin it all by bringing religion into it.

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