Here we are again, just a few short, wintry days before
Christmas Day, and as usual I am in that half panicked state of knowing that I
still have things to do (buying the fresh foodstuffs for Christmas dinner for
one thing), but also vaguely aware that there are probably some things that I
haven't thought of but which may only occur to me when it is too late. It is
the same most years, and I'm sure I am not alone in this; Christmas creeps up
on us like a ghost in Scooby Doo cartoon. Every year when the first signs of
Christmas appear in the shops and on television, be it in the middle of summer
or more reasonably in mid-autumn, I always think to myself that there is plenty
of time to get organised and then suddenly Christmas Day is less than a week
away and it's panic stations.
Although the supermarkets are more crowded in these last few
days before Christmas and customers are prowling up and down the aisles with
trolleys laden with enough food to endure a siege rather than cater for just a
day or two, they seem to be fewer in
number than in years gone by, and having visited my local shopping centre, the
crowds there also seem smaller than in recent years. Are people scaling back
this year, I wonder? If they are, why? Money could be a reason, after all we
are told that we are still in a period of austerity, wage rises are modest at
best, and many people's domestic budgets are under pressure. But that doesn't
normally stop people splashing the cash - or maxing out their credit cards -
during the festive season. Perhaps it is the political situation - uncertainty
has a habit or reining in people's spending, especially if they are pessimistic
about their prospects and the future in general - but frankly, we've had
austerity Christmases before, we've had political and economic uncertainty before
and I don't recall those Christmases being any less frenetic.
Could it be a religious thing? A couple of years ago, I
wrote in my Christmas blog (Batteries Not Included)
that "Ostensibly, Britain remains a
Christian country. At the last Census in 2011, 33 million people in England and
Wales (59.3% of the population) stated that they were Christians; the next
largest religious group were Muslims with 2.7 million people (4.8%) while 14.1
million people (around 25%) reported no religion." Now, however an
article in The Spectator in May this year claims that for the first time in
recorded history, there are more people who claim to follow no religion than
there are Christians in Britain.[1]
This is probably not, as some might expect, due to an upsurge in the numbers of
people following other religions as those who claim to follow a religion other
than Christianity account for 8% (44% claim to be Christians) but rather it is
the 48% who claim no religious affiliation who account for Christianity's
decline.
This forty-eight percent presumably includes those who have
at one time or another declared themselves to be Jedis, although this week the
Charity Commissioners had some bad news for the 177,000 who claimed that
religion at the 2011 census. The Charity Commissioners rejected an application
to grant charitable status to The Temple of the Jedi Order, saying that Jediism
did not "promote moral or ethical improvement" for charity law
purposes. Off hand, I'm unaware of any references to Christmas in any of the
Star Wars films, but given the amount of toys related to the franchise that are
available and which are presumably still a popular gift at this time of year, I
assume that being a Jedi is not incompatible with celebrating Christmas.
 |
| "Religious icon I am not." |
Apparently the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights
Commission felt it necessary this year to tell employers it is acceptable to
celebrate Christmas, and that doing so is not offensive to non-Christians,
which tells you something of the way in which many people's views on
Christianity have been shaped and altered over the years. And let's be honest, if aliens from outer
space descended on Britain come December, any list of things that they believed
we worshipped would include alcohol, food, pine trees and a man with a white
beard and wearing a red costume way before Jesus got a look in. So secular has
Christmas become, so much a celebration of conspicuous consumption and excess, that frankly the people most likely to be
offended by celebrating it nowadays would be tee-total, vegan, chrometophobes.[2]
The spread of a secular Christmas has meant that in countries like Japan, where
Christians are very much in the minority, the holiday is celebrated and
presents and cards are exchanged, but without the religious apsects.
Fifty years ago, declaring oneself to be Church of England
was the default for most people who were not devout, nowadays similar numbers
would declare themselves not religious or prefer not to answer. But on the
whole, any scaling back of Christmas spending and celebrating has probably no
connection with a decline in Christianity, since the holiday and the
celebrations have long since ceased to make more than a passing reference to
religion. Many of us make token efforts at some sort of Christian celebration,
but it rarely goes much beyond Christingle and Midnight Mass, so on the whole I
really don't think that this year's somewhat muted run up to Christmas is
anything to do with any decline in religious observance.
 |
| Midnight Mass |
A major reason that I have formed the impression that
Christmas is more low-key this year based on the thinner crowds round the shops
may be the inexorable increase in on-line shopping. If the number of parcels that
have arrived in our household is anything to go by, my daughters are doing
their best to make up for any shortfall in Christmas spending on the part of
the rest of the population. This has been in part fuelled by my elder daughter
suffering such a frustrating time at Westfield in Stratford that she ended up
doing virtually all of her shopping online.
 |
| The lights in Regent Street. |
Of course it is entirely possible - probable, in fact - that
my perception of Christmas is a factor of age, and not just mine (although I
cannot deny an increase in ennui), but that of my children. Christmas for
children is such a magical time but we've scaled back, particularly on the
decorations, as they have got older - but now they are grown up, and the
dynamic has changed somewhat. Whereas in years past our younger daughter's
excitement about Christmas was driven (like most children) to quite an extent
by her anticipation of the presents coming her way, this year she is more excited
by the prospect of the rest of us opening the gifts she has bought.
Of course it is entirely possible that my view of Christmas
this year is out of tune with yours, or indeed the majority of people, and that
while Christmas 2016 seems to me to be much more low key than Christmases past,
for everyone else it is full steam ahead.
Despite the possible 'bah humbug!' impression you may have
formed about my feelings on Christmas, I will enjoy it in my own way. I will
enjoy the present opening, and the cooking and eating the usual lunch - turkey,
sprouts, stuffing, roast potatoes, etc, etc. I'll enjoy nodding off in front of
the telly. I'll enjoy the odd glass of wine and the board games. And then I'll
enjoy getting back to normal once it is all over.
However you are celebrating the season, here's wishing you a
Merry Christmas!
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