What has Christmas Come to today?
Debts, Depression, Divorce and Domestic Violence,
What has Christmas
Come to today?
Jessica Gascoigne 10s
Christmas- how can we define this, a retail Christmas, a Christian Christmas, or a Pagan Christmas?
Many issues come to mind if we think Christmas. The Father figure of Christmas, not Jesus but a fat old man in a bright red coat. This special festival to each Christian child around the world, should this be right? A manufactured profit making man changed by Coca-Cola to represent their colour, red, instead of the religious meanings to Christmas.
A Christian Christmas, apparently, the season of good cheer did not start out as an exclusive Christian festival. How could this be?
According to Pagans, the early Christian church hijacked December 25th to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Was this that they saw everyone having a good time and decided to take advantage of it?
Christmas has changed through the years of celebration. During the Christmas season, there are so many things to take one's attention that we have tendancy to miss the true meaning of Christmas. Some link Christmas with decorated trees, sentimental carols, and parties. Sometimes people are so occupied with tinsel, toys, and turkey, that the real meaning of Christmas is lost.
In recent generations, Christmas has involved spending money. In my opinion, money that we don't have for things that we don't need.
Advertisements of toys for children. In many other articles people may have described Christmas as being too commercial. How can we define Christmas being too commercial? Would Christmas as it is today be lost without commercialisation? If you take Christmas over two thousand years ago- that was rugged and simple.
The advertisers of toys and trees for Christmas use the advertisements and children as a weapon for the adults of today. It shoots guilt ...
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In recent generations, Christmas has involved spending money. In my opinion, money that we don't have for things that we don't need.
Advertisements of toys for children. In many other articles people may have described Christmas as being too commercial. How can we define Christmas being too commercial? Would Christmas as it is today be lost without commercialisation? If you take Christmas over two thousand years ago- that was rugged and simple.
The advertisers of toys and trees for Christmas use the advertisements and children as a weapon for the adults of today. It shoots guilt into the adults if they don't get their treasured children the latest modern to on the high street.
The parents of today want to or have to try to do their best for their children, even if it means that you have to borrow money to do it. Plastic debt is a favourite over the Christmas period as the parents get the credit card bill around the end of January, early February time, the shock of Christmas can sometimes flatten marriages. Some marriages don't get over Christmas. Their debts increase, the pressure rises, and families end up paying for Christmas all year round.
Pressure, arguments, leads to domestic violence, then divorce and depression. The Samaritans are called out more over Christmas than any other time of the year.
'Peace on Earth good will to all men'. Christmas is a time, which for some people includes loneliness. In the modern world this familiar anecdote should happen but why doesn't it? The poverty in the world, through wars and homelessness still happens today.
No religion- how can we justify this? Isn't Christmas a time to search our hearts and minds during a Christmas season, to the time, place and setting where Jesus was born, and to try and remember the purposes of which he came.
In the modern world, today many people wouldn't know why Jesus came to Earth. He came to reveal God the Father, to put away sin, to set men free from the works of devil.
Maybe if we try to learn during this Christmas season, why Jesus came down to Earth maybe we would respect Christmas more than we do today for its religious purposes.
In our multicultural world of today does religion really need to be publicised? Many would answer 'Yes', many people would not know that other religions celebrate Christmas too.
Many families celebrate Christmas although they are not celebrating Christianity, they celebrate the festivity. They buy presents for their families, give and receive presents. They don't celebrate Jesus. People may say that that is wrong but what is wrong by celebrating their love for each other? That's all they do, which is good in that sense.
Other religions are just echoing the pagan celebration of the past, not the Christian celebration over the last two thousand years.
I think that people celebrate Christmas more in the spirit of the pagan ritual than the Christian one, unless you are in a Christian household, Jesus isn't mentioned.
Families' get together to show their appreciation to each other, I don't feel that it is bad by the way that Christmas is moving. It is sad in the sense that children don't learn that Christmas isn't just about getting the latest Playstation game.
Christmas may be seen as a part of keeping the childhood image of Christmas through generations, to pass it onto our children.
The innocence of Christmas is easily lost when the thought of children sitting on a fat, greasy, old, paedophile's knee, dressed up as the Father figure of Christmas which every girl and boy at one point loves, loses the innocence of Christmas completely.
A four-year-old who just expects to receive saying that 'There's no such thing as Father Christmas' is sad.
Sometimes the world seems to strive to find the meaning of Christmas through today's commercial world, clinging onto the last dwindling values of the roast and carols. Images on Christmas cards of snowy scenes 'I'm dreaming of a white Christmas'- since when have we had the last white Christmas? Many of us do dream of a white Christmas.
Christmas, although there are many downs to it, is fantastic. In the depth of winter, it is cold, wet windy and dull, we go to school, it is dark and the same when we leave.
In the middle of winter, you have two weeks of nice foods, the warmth and comfort of your home, you give and receive presents. If we didn't have Christmas, the biggest 'Bash' of the year, the winter would be so long.
As you gradually get older, it may not be the Christian meaning of Christmas but, you realise that Christmas isn't about giving and receiving presents, its about being with the people you care about and love.
