As a card-carrrying atheist, I confess that I really like Christmas. I think it’s for everyone, not just the devout whose predecessors nicked the winter festival for themselves. Long before the birth of the alleged Jesus of Nazareth Pagan festivals took place, often around the time of the winter solstice, the darkest, grimmest day of the year. And unlike religion, Christmas has gradually evolved.
I like the way that people, usually very sincerely, wish each other “Happy Christmas”. What most of them are saying, I suspect, is “happy holidays”, a greeting usually associated with the far-more-devout-than-us USA. It’s just about the only day when most of us do exactly the same thing. We are usually with close family and friends, we relax, we eat and drink far too much; in the words of Paul McCartney we are “simply having a wonderful Christmas time.”
In my little world, I have little interest in whether or not people celebrate Christmas and if they do, then how. I choose not to go to church, I have little interest in the Queen’s annual address to her loyal and indeed disloyal subjects, I will certainly not be watching Eastenders. But if that is how others wish to celebrate the big day, then good for them.
I would not change much about it and neither would anyone else. Some people complain about the commercialisation of Christmas, but they are often the same people who are overfilling their supermarket trolleys with industrial quantities of things they don’t need AND gushing over who has produced the best Christmas ad. In reality, it’s been the commercialisation of Christmas that has made it what it is today. None of that panic shopping to the Mall has anything to do with celebrating the birth of a baby to a virgin several thousand years ago. (By the way: what were Joseph and Mary thinking about trying to get a hotel room on Christmas Eve? They’re either closed or fully booked. Anyway, they had nine months to prepare, didn’t they?)
Few of us sit at the table, stuffing turkey into our mouths in between toasts to Jesus Christ. We’re more likely to raise a glass to someone who actually existed and someone we rather wished still did. I quite like the idea of spending a moment toasting absent friends and family and imagining their presence once more. It is fortunate indeed that we have so much food to plough through because, as the years go by, there are ever more people to remember. Not around the table will be my mum, my dad, my step dad, my only uncle and all my grandparents, who if they were still alive would be well over 100 and in some cases nearer 130. The least mature member of my entire family, I am also the senior one. That didn’t work out too well, did it?
I admit I would like to administer a lethal injection to some parts of Christmas, like the music of Cliff Richard, Jona Lewie and Chris de Burgh (that’s just for starters), but apart from that, what’s not to love?
Christmas is happy and sad. We do have our memories of Christmas past and I can recall Christmases from not that long ago where everyone I spent it with has died. And every year, there are more and more people who haven’t made it. So it is happy and sad, good and bad, and it is the time for reflection as well as celebration.
Christmas is definitely about giving more than receiving and it’s about creating memories for the next generation to enjoy. We never know whether today will be our last and by the same token whether this Christmas will be our last. For these reasons and many more, no one has the exclusive hold on Christmas. It’s there for everyone.
Happy Christmas, everyone.
