What Christmas tradition will you be following this year?
How I See It with Denzil McDaniel • Published 22 Dec 2011 09:30
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hey say Christmas is a season for all families to get together.
Apart from that, it's quite a nice time of the year!
Only joking, I bet you're really looking forward to having the old uncle snooze off in the armchair, filling the room with the after-effects of the Brussel sprouts.
It's become a bit of a cliche, hasn't it, that the true meaning of Christmas gets lost.
It was certainly lost in York in England this year. Did you read that in one shopping centre, an elf resigned from his post at the grotto after being subjected to a foul-mouthed rant from a parent.
And unbelievably at the same place, a man verbally abused a woman dressed as a Christmas tree -- did he threaten to punch her lights out, as one columnist wrily put it.
Most of the traditions at Christmastime involve one or all of three things: eating, drinking and watching television.
Plus, I suppose, getting and receiving presents.
I was at a seminar recently and we were all asked at the start what we remember as our favourite Christmas present. They ranged from one guy remembering getting a brand new football every year to a woman getting a wigwam and spending hours playing in it with her brother.
The people at the seminar were, you will have guessed, no spring chickens. How times have changed.
Through the years, there will have been present upgrades. Remember the simplicity of a computer tennis game which simply had a short white line blipping across the screen to be played back by a slightly longer white line?
Atari and cabbage patch dolls have had their day.
And, as they say, one day we'll look back on Christmas 2011 as the good old days. Ah, remember the old-fashioned X-box Kinnect?
A survey recently showed that children under-8 are spending more time in front of screens than ever. (They needed a survey to work that one out?!)
The story I read shows that in the United States, Jaden Lender, aged three, sings along softly with the "Five Little Monkeys" on the family iPad. He likes crushing the ants in "Ant Smasher" and improving his swing in the golf app.
(He's three, remember).
Parents used to be accused of using the television as a babysitter.
Nowadays, it's the app. Now, we're downloading apps and handing the iPhone to children as young as 18 months.
Don't mind me, though.
That's just the way times are moving. And it can be good. I've now got an iPhone, and my daughter downloaded a book app for me and put the Bible on its little shelf. Means I can now pick up my phone and go to any passage I want on the screen at the touch of a button.
The real concern is not the introduction of new and more mind-boggling technology in society.
It's the removal of Christian values that worries me.
Also in the U.S. this year, the White House referred to Christmas trees as Holiday Trees for fear of offending non-Christians.
What?
In one reaction, CBS presenter, Ben Stein, (a Jew) said people saying Merry Christmas to him didn't offend him one bit.
"I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians."
And in a further reaction to this, and the way that America seems to be rejecting God more and more, Billy Graham's daughter said: "For years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives......how can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"
This particularly resonates with me at Christmas time.
My youngest son came home from a little church meeting recently with this profound thought. "Mr Peters says that if you take Christ out of Christmas, you're just left with MAS, or shopping (Marks and Spencer)."
So remember what it's really all about. We light the candles of love, hope, peace and joy.
Remember the message in all its forms. Remember the less fortunate, those for whom Christmas isn't a happy time (for whatever reason).
And, of course, remember to celebrate the joy of the Christian message.
Despite it all, I still love Christmas, because to be honest you can notice people being much nicer to each other.
And some things never change.
Last week, after a night out, I got into a taxi.
And after a few seconds silence, I said: "Are you busy tonight?"
And the next question after another few seconds: "What time are you on to?"
I wonder how many hundred times the taxi driver hears that!
Now I'm getting to the stage that I'm saying to the children: "Take your coat off inside or you'll not feel the benefit of it when you go out."
Or: "Stop waving that thing about or you'll put someone's eye out."
There's one thing, though, that I'll say to you all that no matter how many times I say it, I mean it: "Have a very Happy Christmas, folks, and a peaceful and prosperous New Year."
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