When I was growing up in Ireland, everyone in our family gave each other little gifts at Christmas. We saved up our pocket money and went shopping thinking of what we could afford and what gift would please our parents and our brothers and sisters. It made us think about them and about each other and not about ourselves. It was a way a family bonded and we were taught that giving was more joyous that receiving.

As a small boy, I felt that receiving is the best part and waited with great excitement for the special moment after returning from morning mass when we all gathered around the Christmas tree and the gifts were shared out.

I remember the strong smell of the pine tree and the twinkling lights and decorations that we unpacked year after year. The joy of receiving gifts or presents simple and inexpensive as they were, was a great joy. It made me feel happy, that I belonged, that I was a worthy member of a family, and I was loved. The cost of the gift was immaterial. The value it conveyed was the most important of all. The poorest family sharing the simplest of exchange gifts could experience the same bonding and love.

The commercialization of Christmas has changed much of that. Today, the self-serving advertisers of the commercial world spends millions to persuade us that the more expensive the gift, the greater the love it expresses. It is a fallacy of the greatest magnitude and we must reject it. It would mean that the rich love each other more than the poor. It also creates huge expectations between people that cannot be met, leading children and adults alike to believe that if they receive a gift of lesser commercial value they are unloved, or loved much less that anyone else.

Commercialism is the materialistic subversion of Christmas to make greater sales and profits and it undermines the whole meaning of Christmas. If we want to celebrate Christmas in a meaningful way, it ought to be a celebration of the great values that Jesus brought to civilization: unselfish giving, sacrificing for others without seeking rewards, risking ourselves to protect the weak and the vulnerable and working for equality, justice and peace.

The capture of the Christmas celebration by the commercial and materialistic world has practically made it a pagan festival. In some government circles the word Christmas is not allowed. They have taken Christ out of Christ-mas and have banned Christmas greetings as discriminatory as favoring one religion over another or as a infringement of secularism. Now greetings are almost meaningless, phases have replaced Happy Christmas, such as Happy Holiday, Seasons Greetings, Joyful Festival and so on. Most Greeting cards don’t even indicate that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ.

Perhaps Christians should take this further and forbid the use of the word Christmas in any secular or commercial context other than a religious one and sue for damages when it’s misused.

The hedonistic parties, sumptuous meals, drinking binges and meaningless and loveless gift giving and all the other practices that corrupt the religious nature of Christmas is an insult to Christianity.

The materialistic takeover of Christmas is a contradiction of all that Jesus came to teach and achieve in this world. Today much of the birthday celebration of the Son of God is the worship of materialism under the guise of gift giving. The greatest gift of all is to give our own life of service and help to the poor, the needy and the downtrodden without asking for payback or a gift in return. That is what we ought to be thinking about every day especially at Christmas; how we can stop damaging ourselves trying to gratify our own selfish desires and instead finding ways help others. It’s the road to happiness.

We need to strive to share wealth with the abused children the refugees, homeless, sick and victims of abuse and oppression. There is no better way to celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth since this is why he was born in the first place. (Gifts for children to St.Columan’s, Dalgan Park, Navan, Ireland)

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Contact Fr. Shay Cullen at the Preda Center, Upper Kalaklan, Olongapo City, Philippines.
e-mail: preda@info.com.ph
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