“It’s coming around again the slowly creeping hand of time and it’s command...”

So begins the lyrics of a song I have always enjoyed - “These Days” by the Australian band Powderfinger. The song (although not a Christmas song by any stretch of the imagination) captures the certain something of a melancholy mood that I always feel around Christmas time. For a number of personal reasons this year is somewhat more pleasant than many others have been but the intangible sadness remains.

I imagine that many people celebrate this annual event as the birth of Jesus Christ. Does this appear as a strange statement to make ? I feel (and fear) that for many this is a much more significant event because of it’s role in the social calendar of the year, for the giving, receiving and consumption of gifts. I fear that, although I am not a Christian (per se), that living and existing in what is largely a Christian culture that the culture of Christian celebration has been largely handed over to Mammon and self-indulgence.

Can a thousand “Carols by Candlelight” or Nativity plays draw our consumer hypnosis away from the glittering prizes of Christmas spending and ebullient celebration ? Perhaps - but the intricacies of a consumer economy and an annual religious festival are such that I fear that for many (if not most) this will be a Christmas without Jesus. The near-orgasmic advertising frenzy and commercial glitz of Christmas would seem to exclude (in 99 cases out of 100) the story of Jesus’ birth and the message of love and peace that underlies the message. In those cases where the story is celebrated - how often is it little more than a fairytale for children (and adults) which will soon be forgotten when the new DVDs, assorted toys and computer games are uncovered. Family connections are important and social bonds are paramount but Christmas as an annual spiritual theme-park event leaves me feeling empty.

Perhaps more people should look to a simple Christmas devoid of such conspicuous consumption as we more often witness in our “Western” societies. Perhaps something, somewhere and somehow has been lost, something which may be all the more apparent in some orphanage in Mumbai or church gathering in Abidjan, somewhere perhaps unspoilt by over-industrialised commercial notions of spiritual celebration.

I wonder sometimes if my Christmas ennui relates to this spiritual void I perceive in the rank commercialisation of Christmas. If the gifts given and received represent the gifts of the wise men to the baby Jesus - I feel very strongly that in this case that the link between the signifier and signified has been broken.