The commercialisation of the Christmas season seems to have little to do with the simple celebration of Christ's birth of my youth . Our own tree was put up on Christmas eve and had to be watched carefully as we had real candles. We made all our decorations and the few cards which we sent went to distant friends and relatives- never to people near enough to visit.
One main present each, carol singing and bells and the Carol Service--
Now it seems people expect to spend hundreds if not thousands of pounds over Christmas.
Jim Wallis' blog about the 'The War on Christmas- by Fox News' resonates with our culture this side of the Atlantic.
He concludes:-
'Much more important than symbols and symbolism is how we live the faith that we espouse. And here is where Fox News’s war on Christmas is most patently unjust.
The real Christmas announces the birth of Jesus to a world of poverty, pain, and sin, and offers the hope of salvation and justice.
The Fox News Christmas heralds the steady promotion of consumerism, the defense of wealth and power, the adulation of money and markets, and the regular belittling or attacking of efforts to overcome poverty.
The real Christmas offers the joyful promise of peace and the hope of reconciliation with God and between humankind.
The Fox News Christmas proffers the constant drumbeat of war, the reliance on military solutions to every conflict, the demonizing of our enemies, and the gospel of American dominance.
The real Christmas lifts up the Virgin Mary’s song of praise for her baby: “He has brought the mighty down from their thrones, and lifted the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich empty away.”
The Fox News Christmas would label Mary’s Magnificat as “class warfare.”
So if there is a war on Christmas it's the one being waged by Fox News.'(For the full text of this blog see God's Politics)
Something similar is happening here though not necessarily orchestrated by Fox News!
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