Is it just me, or has Christmas lost its spirit?
Recently I was talking to the six year old son of a friend about what he was hoping to get from Santa, and whether he had posted his letter to Santa at the North Pole, you know, generally trying to strike up a conversation about something he might like to talk about. I was quite surprised by his attitude that he knew perfectly well his parents would be buying his presents, he even knew what he was going to be getting.
This unsettled me. We continued to talk, about the meaning of Christmas, what they were doing at school or church, if he was looking forward to the Christmas parade in town.
Coming from a Baptist family he well understood the meaning of Christmas, and his class were making a nativity scene, while at Sunday school the kids were organising a concert. Seemed normal enough, but I'm still unsettled. It's as if the spirit and excitement of Christmas has passed by and left this boy immune to its magic. I can't help wondering if Christmas is such a big deal these days in the shops, on the radio or TV, flyers in the mailbox etc that our senses have been dulled to the magic of the festive season.
Remembering my own childhood, Christmas was something that started to happen in December, retailers didn't decorate their store in October, there wasn't as much advertising and it was less obtrusive. In fact, Christmas seemed less commercial than it does these days. In conversations with friends I've realised that in fact Christmas has always been commercialised. The tradition of giving gifts is old, harking right back to the middle ages and feudal society. Of course it's all relative. Other generations had less disposable income, or the range of gifts available was limited.
I think the thing that upsets me so much about the festive season these days is that it seems to have been completely corrupted by marketers/retailers who see Christmas as one of their main sources of income for the financial year. The unfortunate side of this is that the situation is entirely of their own creation. Many years ago, Christmas trading was seen as a small bonus on top of regular monthly trading.
My belief is that greed got in the way, and now Christmas trading contributes to such a big percentage of their annual budget that they have to use every marketing trick in the book to stay afloat. This of course means that their Christmas trading of high-margin goods has to start earlier in the year because after the 25th December, everything gears up for the big sales, much of which is still profitable, but not the extent it is before the 25th.
