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Christmas Contemplations

'Celebrating Christmas' always fills me with foreboding, as I confess to being somewhat cautious in my desire to enter in to the ‘Christmas spirit'.

I'm sure that has a great deal to with the low key manner in which my parents approached Christmas, but it is also due in a large part to the way in which the holiday is popularly celebrated.

If, as Christians, we choose to particularly remember the fact that Christ Jesus came into the world, heralded by angels and born in Bethlehem, then well and good. We ought to rejoice together, worship together, and take opportunity to speak of Jesus and his love to family, friends and neighbours. Our Christmases ought to be distinctly Christian. They should surely reflect something of the grace and character of the Jesus that we celebrate.

What exactly do I mean?

Simply this. In our world of materialism, we need to remember the poverty and humility of the Incarnation. This year in Britain, according to the website for the British Retail Consortium, it is estimated that £33 billion was spent in December 2006, £15 billion of which was in the fortnight leading up to Christmas. This year, each person spent an average of £390 on Christmas gifts, approximately £163 on food and drink, with the average cost of Christmas Day coming in at £975. Based on a 12 hour day, that works out at £1.35 per minute, and £81.27 per hour. We also bought 7 million Christmas trees, costing the nation £245 million.

At the same time, half of our world – nearly three billion people – lives on less than two US dollars per day. Alongside that, approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished. According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.” That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year.

I would not for a single moment wish to argue that we should fail to give gifts to our families, our children or others. Nevertheless, a distinctly Christian Christmas ought also to be balanced and not forgetful of those in need.

Perhaps we don't need to spend as much as we think. Perhaps we have lost sight of the big picture.

In the Incarnation, we see a stooping Saviour who cared for the most poverty-strcken of all - the spiritually bankrupt and the socially destitute. Were he to judge us by our care for the needy and for the careful stewardship we exercise over our money, as he surely one day will, I wonder how our Christmases would fare...?

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