Hijacking CHRISTmas Part II: The Tree

In my first post on this topic I talked about the root cause of the hijacking of Christmas. Consumerism is one manifestation of unbelief in our culture. We believe that by buying stuff, we will be made happy and all of our fears will be relieved. We have turned The celebration of Christ into an opportunity to worship the god of consumerism.

The meaning of Christmas is the redemptive story of God, who looked on us in our need and came to be with us. Through marketing the elements of Christmas, our culture, and our economy have slowly and steadily transformed the celebration of the coming of the Christ, to the celebration of our own greatness and material wealth. Instead of reveling in the majesty and glory of God in the coming of Christ, we revel in our "mud pies" of tech toys, video games, and doll houses.

Santa Claus- Yeah... well in our household, we are making a conscious effort to keep the fat man in the red suit from becoming more associated with this day and time than Jesus. We are making a conscious effort to focus more on the Greatest Gift that has ever been given to humanity than the gifts that we give our children, or receive from others. No, our kids aren't going to be the jerk kids that say to your kid "Santa isn't real" (I hope). Our goal is that when our children think about Christmas, the first thing they think about is Jesus. We hope that our gifts that we give our children will not be an occasion to worship the false god of consumerism, but that they will be an echo of the grace of God in sending Christ.

Back to SC- The marketeers have picked up on this fat guy in a red suit that goes around the world and gives presents to all the good little girls and boys. Instead of Christmas being a time where we give out of our abundance to others, it has become a time to flaunt our own wealth and spend our money on ourselves. Christmas has become a competitive game encouraged by the culture to get the most stuff. I remember getting into talks with other kids at school where we compared what each of us got for Christmas and the ones who got the most stuff were esteemed higher than the ones who got less.

This is not the meaning of Christmas and I have serious problems with even using Santa Claus as a behavior modification strategy. What are we teaching our children? We are teaching them to be self-righteous Pharisees and not communicating to them the gospel.

Coincidently, the Desiring God website just posted this video of John Piper talking about this very issue.



In summary, the culture has hijacked Christmas in a couple ways, by turning it into an occasion to worship the god of consumerism and replacing the truth of the good news of the gospel with the threat of lost (or gained if you're good) presents.