Is Christmas Dying?

[Emil Miller]

i ask the question because my observation of the last three or four Christmas periods has seen a marked falling off of Christmas iights, front door wreaths and other artifacts usually associated with the season.
Similarly, there was this year a definite lack of frenzied activity in supermarkets and other retail outlets. Shopping has been a doddle compared to a few years ago when trolleys full of Christmas fayre kept one waiting ages at the checkouts while Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer droned on in the background.
I think there are obvious grounds for this apparent decline, including the ongoing effects of the 2008 near economic collapse and the fact that many people are shopping on-line, as well as (in the UK at any rate) the spread of atheism that can be witnessed in media sponsored phone ins.
Millions of people who endure the ritual of overeating before watching hours of appalling rubbish on TV, are also voting with their feet and going abroad to escape the deadening ritual that Christmas has become.

[YesNo]

I assume the holiday shopping decline would be related to the coming or ongoing recession. The winter solstice can be celebrated for many different reasons besides Christianity. Where I live the community is largely Jewish. Schools are closed for Jewish holidays and my daughters went to their share of bat mitzvahs.

I also don't see as many trick-or-treaters during Halloween as I did in the past. That might be a sign of something, too, or just the fact that there aren't many children living nearby and my children are too old to get their friends to ring our house.

Most of my experience with atheism has been from Lit Net. I don't need to address it in the real world.

A taxi driver once told me that 40% of London is Muslim. That seems like a lot. Probably the only thing worse would be having 40% of London be Christian or atheist or a combination of the two.

I have noticed an increase in advertisements for yoga classes, ayurvedic medicine and general new age items such as crystals, Tarot cards, or incense. Going to the library there is a whole (free) newsletter advertising services of that sort. A couple of decades ago I don't think I saw any of it, but it has probably been around. I think the religions or spiritualities that are taking over the vacuum would be something vague like that, that don't require a text to love or hate in the case of atheism. It is something I could see myself participating in. I do yoga, by the way.

[Lokasenna]

My family and I didn't bother with Christmas this year. We've only just moved into this house, and we're only living in it until March in any case, and as part of the move with threw out all our old Christmas decorations. We all decided it was too much of a fag to decorate, and also decided not to do presents/cards either. We had a nice dinner of roast beef (my father and I both dislike turkey) in the mid-afternoon, and one of my mother's marvelous home-made Christmas puddings (easily one of the highlights of the year) in the evening, but other than that it was a fairly normal day.

These days, if you haven't got young children then it all seems a great deal of effort. Christmas is part of our cultural heritage, I suppose, even if individuals are not necessarily Christian - I did cheekily propose a toast to celebrate the birthday of Sir Isaac Newton instead of Christ - but just because the fundamental belief behind the ritual has gone doesn't mean that the ritual no longer has meaning. Perhaps next year we'll do something a bit more elaborate.

[Emil Miller]

I think agnosticism has been the main force against Christianity for perhaps 50 years and it has paved the way for atheism. It's obvious that in such circumstances other belief patterns will emerge, as is shown by a program about the rise of paganism in the UK that was aired on BBC radio recently.
It's difficult to gauge how firmly held are the beliefs of those claiming alternatives to Christianity, except in the case of Muslims where the religion is the dominant factor in their existence, and much of their behaviour may be down to faddism or exhibitionism, although some are bound to be genuine and a sign that Christian rituals such as Easter and Christmas are fading out.

[YesNo]

Here's a history of Christmas: http://www.history.com/topics/christmas/history-of-christmas

I found it interesting that Cromwell "cancelled" Christmas and the Puritans even outlawed it in Boston at one time.

[Dreamwoven]

I am not sure I would agree that Christmas is dying. We still celebrate it every year.

[Emil Miller]

I am not sure I would agree that Christmas is dying. We still celebrate it every year.

True, but the alacrity with which we do so appears to be diminishing.

[Dreamwoven]

And its taken over by commercialism much more than it used to.

[Lokasenna]

And its taken over by commercialism much more than it used to.

True, that. And how many people, particularly children, actually identify Christmas with Christ? Very few, I would imagine. The hideous image of 'santa claus', who owes more to Odin than to Yahweh, is the one we see trotted out time and again. I'm no Christian, but I do find the replacement of the nativity story (which does at least superficially inspire hope and the promise of redemption) with a tawdry orgy of materialism (in which 'good' children are given material, rather than spiritual, rewards) more than a little distasteful.

[Dreamwoven]

Very well put Lokasenna! Of course, the christian festival build on the much older pagan rites of the midwinter season. But the commercialism of modern Yuletide is very much a turnoff...

[Dreamwoven]

My Jewish father told me that the carol Good King Wenceslas was about a Czech king. He was right, see this entry in Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_King_Wenceslas). The Feast of Stephen in the carol refers to the Holy Crown of Hungary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Crown_of_Hungary), the Crown of St. Stephen that represented Hungary of the Dual Monarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_monarchy), the Austro-Hungarian Empire from 1867 to 1918. Santa Claus is based on Saint Nicholas.

After the First World War Hungary lost this position in the Treaty of which still today accounts for the resentment in Hungary of its demotion (see the Treaty of Trianon (http://www.britannica.com/event/Treaty-of-Trianon). The Crown of St. Stephen was intended by the Regent who ruled Hungary for much of the Second World War (Admiral Horthy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miklós_Horthy)) to be claimed by the successor to the crown. So he ruled Hungary as Regent, until this could happen. It never did happen. But the resentment in Hungary remains strong today, and is represented by the Orban Government of Hungary and more extremely by the political party on the far right Jobbik (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobbik) with 20 percent of the vote and antisemitic.

Thanks to Horthy, Budapest has the only jewish community in Europe and boasts its largest Synagogue on Dohany utca (Tobacco Street).

It is interesting how the christmas message is based on tales handed down over a thousand years and become distorted and the original message lost! Santa Claus was Saint Nicholas.

[OrphanPip]

I'll be happy to be past the Christmas music, it's inescapable whenever I go to the shops. Malaysia is particularly bad because as soon as the Christmas music ends it's replaced with Chinese New Year music which is equally obnoxious but is somewhat more palatable when shopping because I can more easily tune it out since I don't speak Chinese.

[YesNo]

By the time I've heard "last Christmas I gave you my heart the very next day you gave it away" for the second or third time, usually around Thanksgiving, I have had as much Christmas music as I can handle.

[Emil Miller]

By the time I've heard "last Christmas I gave you my heart the very next day you gave it away" for the second or third time, usually around Thanksgiving, I have had as much Christmas music as I can handle.

I agree that Christmas songs can be embarrassingly trite; the second line below is weak weak weak.



Yuletide carols being sung by a choir
And folks dressed up like Eskimos

[Lokasenna]

When I was growing up our family business, a small supermarket, used to have piped in music - and every December it was nothing but Christmas songs. Year after year, the same bloody songs on continual repeat during the long hours of work. This perhaps goes some way to explaining my distaste for Christmas! Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree still makes the red mist descend...

[Dreamwoven]

And, in Sweden, Christmas goes on and on. Here the thirteenth day of christmas (Trettondagen) is a public holiday as is Trettondags Eve (Trettondagsafton). And the carol which "celebrates" this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twelve_Days_of_Christmas_(song)) ("On the first day of Xmas my true love gave to me...) is a classic spend, spend, spend carol.

The two bank holidays at the end of Xmas are always just too much...

Twelfth Night (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelfth_Night) is, of course, a Shakespeare play, a cross-dressing comedy.

[Whifflingpin]

Winter would be a damn sight more miserable than it is without Christmas, tawdry commercialism* and awful music notwithstanding.


*Sorry for the tautology - "tawdry" derives it present meaning directly from the tacky commercialism that has from time immoral benefited from religious or other festivals of all kinds.

[Emil Miller]

Winter would be a damn sight more miserable than it is without Christmas, tawdry commercialism* and awful music notwithstanding.


*Sorry for the tautology - "tawdry" derives it present meaning directly from the tacky commercialism that has from time immoral benefited from religious or other festivals of all kinds.

I dislike the winter months as much as anyone, I'm a sunshine person (so why am I living in England? ) but I can honestly say that the deadening ritual of Christmas is something I would willingly forego were it possible. The same goes for other public holidays which impose on people a necessity to behave in accordance with outmoded practices: religious or otherwise.
My ideal would be to make public holidays optional and give everyone time off in lieu so that those who wanted to observe the current status quo could do so and those who would prefer to take their holidays at a more propitious time would also be catered for.

[Dreamwoven]

I think many would agree with you, Emil. But once you get children of your own, or even when your siblings get children, it becomes very difficult to ignore. This, I think is why Christmas has such a hold on people.

[YesNo]

I have worked through winter holidays in the past when others needed the time off. They are somewhat optional. As Dreamwoven mentioned, having children of a certain age changes things.

[Danik 2016]

I didn´t know how to add to this discussion, specially as this is a very serious end of the year. Perhaps our minds are very much on what we can save in the future...
That´s why I´m posting this animation by Maurício de Sousa, the greatest Brazilian children comics cartoonist.

In the story Mônica and her best friend Little Onion are helping the Bethlehem Star to go back to heaven. The little star was on a flight from some cosmic disaster and fell on earth where it entered Mônica´s bedroom. It has to be in heaven in time to iluminate Chistmas Eve. So they have to wait for Santa Claus to take it back.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DD-pV9ddBZA

There are a few dialogues but I think with the above introduction one can understand the story even without undertitles. Mônica, by the way, was inspired by Mauríco´s own daughter.
To Litnetters of other religions: In spite of the Christian references, the star can be considered as an universal symbol I think, specially one that looks like a small cushion ;)

[YesNo]

Nice video. I would not have understood it without your explanation. Mônica's tears reviving the dying star reminded me of Belle and the Beast in the Disney movie, "Beauty and the Beast".

[Danik 2016]

Sure, Yes/No! I was trying to remember, where I had seen/or read about the revival through tears before. Disney was probably Maurícios greatest inspiration.

[Dreamwoven]

Everyone knows about the Twelfth Night of Christmas from Shakespeare. But in Sweden the day after this is called Trettondagen (the 13th day of Christmas). It is a public holiday in Sweden. But this year it is extra special, as the day after is a "squeeze day" (klemdag), between the 13th day and the weekend. Check it in you 2017 diary!). Many people in work take the day as a holiday out of their normal holiday allocation, to go skiing for a 4-day holiday.

[Ecurb]

I love Christmas, and it doesn't seem to be dying despite the decline of Christian faith. One doesn't have to be a Christian to love the story of how God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten son......

Every parent thinks (to some extent, at least) that his own childrens' births will save him from his sins, and give him eternal life. Christmas makes these thoughts universal.

Besides, I like the literature.

Here's a link to Chesterton's "The House of Christmas":

https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Poetry/house_of_christmas.htm

Here, Dostoevsky contributes with "The Beggar Boy and Christ's Christmas Tree" (it's short enough to read in ten minutes, and I love the authorial asides at the beginning and end):

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/58527.htm

[Dreamwoven]

The thirteenth day of Christmas is when in Sweden a trettondagen concert is held in Stockholm. We watched part of it on TV, but it was heavy going. There were no explanations of what music was being played/sung. I recognised Ravel's Bolero, but that was about it.

[Lendo]

The commercial and material aspect of Christmas has become more important threw out the years, that's a fact. Christmas is nowadays a holiday in which buying gifts, shooping and offering stuff is a very important part.

But i don't think it has become the most important part of it, so i do not agree with the idea that Christmas, has a spiritual holiday, a holiday based on fraternal and family values is dying. On the other hand, i'm Portuguese, and in that aspect Portugal is still a more traditional and conservative country than the US, and in Portugal the materialistc perspective is very far away from the american reality. So, probably what i said apllies to my country, but not to the US. Specially to some specific realities, like the big cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

[Dreamwoven]

The 20th day of Christmas is called the twentieth Knut, Knut (Canute in English) being the name day: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Knut%27s_Day.

It marks the end of Christmas. Then the Christmas tree is thrown out, traditionally "danced out" after the decorations have been removed.

[Scheherazade]

While I have no religious affiliation to Christmas, I love it. I see as a celebration of winter and always fuss about it and I really don't see going out of fashion anytime soon. Even my friends from different faiths celebrate Christmas with gusto.

[Dreamwoven]

Today is the 20th Knut, the last day of Christmas, and it falls on Friday the 13th January!

[Danik 2016]

The 20th day of Christmas is called the twentieth Knut, Knut (Canute in English) being the name day: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Knut%27s_Day.

It marks the end of Christmas. Then the Christmas tree is thrown out, traditionally "danced out" after the decorations have been removed.
Interesting article, DW, I didn´t know about St Knut. In Brazil the Christmas period ends officialy on Jan 6th., the Three Kings Day.

[Dreamwoven]

Thank you, Danik. You are doing a great job, by the way.

[Danik 2016]

Thanks, DW. I´m just enjoying myself.