Negating the Nativity

The Christmas season is well underway in not-so-sunny-Edinburgh with a Christmas market springing up in Princess Street and a hand carved nativity in Elizabeth Square. The streets are festooned with twinkling lights - a tradition which really does work better in the Northern hemisphere where it gets dark at 4pm than in Australia where you have to wait until at least 10pm to see any effect at all.

With all the yuletide preparations comes the inevitable media focus on the ‘true meaning’ of Christmas. While one would think the meaning would be sufficiently conveyed by the title (CHRISTmas), there is, as always, some debate on the matter.

Two articles on the same page of today’s Guardian
particularly intrigued me. The first, in the weekly advice column, was a question from a woman concerned about how to explain the meaning of Christmas to her young son: “We are not a religious family and I do not feel comfortable telling him the story of the birth of Christ, but do not want him to grow up recognising Christmas as a merely commercial event concerning toys.” The second, in a regular I’m-a-hip-yet-thoughtful-dad column seems to provide the answer: “Religious or not, we do Christmas because we believe in our children...It is them whom we are worshiping when we layer all the trappings – the reindeer, the carols, the image of Bethlehem under a starry sky – around the one central adoration of a child.”

It is an impressive feat for two separate writers to miss the point so completely on a single page. Whether people choose to practice a religion or not, there is no getting away from the fact that Christmas is a religious festival. To take that away, as the first writer does, leaves very little meaning in the holiday at all – especially if she wishes to keep the focus away from gift giving as well. The second writer, while accepting that there is a religious basis to the season, seems to think that the nativity is just a nice story to remind us how special all children are.

No one would suggest that Eid is just a festival for feasting or that Rosh Hashanah is a celebration of the family. We are happy to accept the religious basis for the holidays of other religions, yet seek alternate meanings in festivals of the Christian faith.

Whether or not one ‘feels comfortable telling the story of the birth of Christ,’ it is worth remembering that it is the fundamental reason why Christmas became the festival it is today. Everything else is just more decoration.