I Hate Christmas

Is it possible for a Christian to hate Christmas? Well it must be because I am and I do. Indeed David Pawson, one of the UK's foremost Christian preachers famously asked God what he thought of Christmas and God's reply was that he hated it too, so I am in good company.

My dislike of the festive season as it has become known has not always been there because as a child I loved it so much. Blissfully unaware of the financial strain Christmas was putting on my dear parents even in the 1950s, I joyfully wrote my letter to Father Christmas letting him know all the toys I wanted him to bring me, unaided as I was, by the massive advertising campaigns children and parents get bombarded with today. Along with my brother and sisters I would eagerly await the arrival of Father Christmas at one of the big City Centre stores. Mum would take four very excited children on the bus to town to meet Santa in his grotto and we would hand over our personal letters to him with all of our requests, but very modest by today's standards - and you know, I never did get that Davy Crocket rifle!

Yes Christmas was indeed a magical time for me. I loved everything about it including all of the carols and Christmas songs. I think I was about 11 when I found out that Father Christmas was really my Dad - must rank as one of the saddest discoveries of my life.

Even in those bygone days, this time of year was for me more about Father Christmas than Jesus Christ, though we had the nativity story at school and the words of all of the lovely carols.

As a teenager growing up in the 1960s my Christmas memories are not so much of presents but of discos. I loved the magical atmosphere of fun that was created by the music of the day. Even then, however, there was an underlying pressure that this was the time of the year for excess. It was like an unwritten law that everyone had to get drunk and get off with someone for a night of sexual passion. That aspect of things I found deeply disturbing and when it did not happen for me it caused me to wonder, "What's wrong with me?". For all that, however, my overriding memory of Christmas in those days is a good one, mainly because of family, friends and some great music.

Christmas then lost its glow for me for a few years until I was married and had young children. The fairytale started all over again as I took on my Dad's mantle as Father Christmas to my children. We enjoyed some lovely times together and overall again I have some good memories of the Christmas season when our kids were young. There was some financial pressure it has to be said, but nothing that we could not manage with God's wonderful provision for us.

It is only in these later years now that we have grandchildren that I have come to appreciate just what enormous pressures parents are under to ensure that their children have a great Christmas. Peer pressure has increased and costs have spiralled when it comes to trying to satisfy the desires of kids for what they want from Father Christmas. No longer the rag doll or the Davy Crocket rifle, but more the expensive mobile phone or even more costly games console.

We are now getting more to the heart of what it is I (and maybe God) hate about Christmas. It is the awful pressure that is put upon parents to buy more and more expensive things each year for their children so that they can have the latest gadget or most up to date fashion. All of this is of course being driven by huge advertising campaigns as giant conglomerates feed off our insatiable appetite for more and more stuff. To some degree or another we all fall prey to this approach and one wonders where will it all end?

Of course some people can afford this decadent lifestyle, but many can't and in a desperate attempt to keep pace with their peers they run up insurmountable debt. I speak as one who has in the past succumbed to this pressure.

Debt is just one of the evils that Christmas brings with it. You can add depression, increased sense of loneliness, additional grief, family break up, increased incidents of drunkenness and drug-taking, more casual sex, marital unfaithfulness and suicide. Now you wonder why I hate Christmas!

Contrary to some who object to the idea of Father Christmas, I still like the idea. Better than Santa Claus in fact because that is only an anagram of Satan Lucas and for obvious reasons I don't like that. Sure Father Christmas is make believe, but so too are all the fairytales and I am glad to say that I still believe in fairytales. I think there is still a place in this modern technological age for make believe, for out of such do dreamers come and where would we be in this world today if there were not those people who dreamed of doing great things and making a better world?
Father Christmas will do for me therefore as a role model. Someone who is kind and generous who fulfils the dreams of children and adults alike.

I can also link Father Christmas into the nativity story, because god is my loving Heavenly Father who sent the Christ child into the world to be born of a virgin (reality not make believe), grow up in a family, live a perfect life and then to die a horrible death for the sins of the whole world. This Christ of Christmas rose again from the dead and lives forever more offering everlasting life to all who will come to him in prayer and give him their lives.

I hate what Christmas has become, what it does to people and how it makes them behave. I long for the simplicity and innocence of childhood, but fear these days are gone for ever.

I want to recapture the magic that I feel when I sing "Away in a Manger" or "Silent Night" without feeling the external pressures that the 21st century Christmas thrusts upon me. I want people to be free to enjoy and soak up the wonder of our Saviour's miraculous birth and the message of joy and peace which accompanied it. In order to do this the Christian Church in the affluent West may have to take the drastic step of removing ourselves from the traditional pagan Christmas celebrated on 25 December and start our own celebration of Christ's birth towards the end of September, nearer I believe to the actual birth day of Jesus. I would like to see a designated day across the country and throughout the nations whereby we could have great celebratory carol services to which people could be invited to enjoy the feelings of Christmas without any of the external pressures that are normally associated with it. We could simply just enjoy the message without any of the paraphernalia that normally surrounds it - except the Christmas meal of course - I would be all for retaining the turkey dinner and Christmas pudding even if it were on 25 September.

Perhaps if we as a Church took this radical step to reintroduce the Christ of Christmas to a needy world then God, as well as me, would start to love Christmas once again.

John Flanner

29 December 2006