Advent Calendar Day 24

(Photo source: Kris De Curtis)

It’s that time again! When we deck the halls and suddenly find ourselves celebrating a holiday which to the religious is the second most important of the year (Easter being first), is to the shopkeepers the busiest time of the year, and to politicians the headache of the year.

The problem is we’re not terribly religious anymore, but one of the highlights of our cultural year is a major religious festival. Ignoring it isn’t an option, but most politicians don’t like to be seen cheerleading for a religion, even though we do still have an established (i.e. national) church whose bishops are chosen by politicians. At the same time however the traditionalists want us to make sure we don’t lose the religion, as the modernists want to try and avoid offending anybody.

Some of our Christmas traditions stem from politics, such as the Christmas tree. The arrival of this very Victorian part of Christmas came with the Germans and it made political sense for our royals to marry, and it was the pictures of Prince Albert and his family round the tree that made them popular. Then there’s the tree in Trafalgar Square, a present from Norway for sheltering its King & government during the occupation. Or the mince pie, whose plain shape comes from the need to disguise the festive favourite from the Puritans of Oliver Cromwell who tried to ban Christmas.

For those at home, it’s a microcosm of many national issues, the debate on the monarchy, ethical food, environmental issues, you name it there’s a problem. Granny won’t eat a Turkey that isn’t organic, Aunt Mary won’t watch anything other than the Queen all day, Uncle Peter offended the vicar asking how many air miles the Christingles clocked up; the list of potential problems quickly builds up.

Then there’s the local authorities, who have to put up the Christmas lights. Putting none up is considered a sign of being scrooge, even at a time of austerity, and so they will go up on your local High Street. However there is the problem of “political correctness”. How should you use public money for what is technically promoting a religion? Some simply use “happy holidays” or some other non-religious phrase, which in theory won’t offend anybody, several faiths have festivals at this time of year.

Then someone takes it too far. A few years ago a council suggested naming its celebrations “Winterval”. This led to a massive outcry from traditionalists, and the observation from many other faiths they weren’t bothered about it being called Christmas, there’s no getting away from the fact it is a holiday for another faith and they accept it. Indeed for politicians the need to not offend anybody is often carried to lengths where the people they’re trying not to offend are rather bemused.

Then we had a speech this week from the Prime Minister, saying we should make more of our Christianity as a nation because, whether we believe in Christianity or not, it has something to offer. Given that people cluster round a rural church every year just for a glimpse of our head of state going to Church you’d have thought that was a bit obvious. However the Media made it an outcry inevitably, when we had the obligatory rant from the national secular society. Funnily enough they never seem very keen to say whether or not they’d let their own children celebrate such a Christian Holiday.

Happy Holidays everybody. Oh what the hay, Merry Christmas!

For yesterday's advent article, click here.

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