What's Christmas all about?
Only 44% of children aged 7 to 11 believe that Christmas is about Christ, according to a survey carried out by Childwise for the BBC. One in six youngsters felt sad, nervous or left out during the festive season. Youngsters spoke about feeling “cold”, “tired” and “worried” and made comments like: “Scared in case I get a rubbish present.” One in 10 children said that their parents were hard to buy for because they were fussy, awkward or did not use previous presents.
Labels: Christmas
posted by Shelina Zahra Janmohamed at 22:06
2 Comments:
In some ways it is even worse than this - that children don't necessarily 'believe' that Christmas is about Christ is perhaps not surprising. Ours is all too a secular world afterall.
But what is worse is that they don't even KNOW that Christmas is the celebration of the birth of Christ. It's not exactly rocket science - the clue is in the word - but that apparently is too much for our young people to grasp these days.
I was brought up in a family -centuries ago - that was resolutely non-believing to the point of being evangelical atheist, but even my parents made sure I understood what Christmas was all about even if they did not accept what I now take to be the truth. That it seems is no longer happening and children are left totally to fend for themselves.
Much in the same way that there are enough young people who will not know against whom we fought WW2 - let alone why. For whom the date 1066 means nothing. Who will say that Darth Vader is the president of the USA - though in that of course at least one allows that they are not wrong!
This general ignorance of absolutely basic facts about the world in which we live and have our being scares me.
I do, however, temper my ire by owning that if someone were to ask me if there is a comparable feast in other major religions to celebrate the birth of their founder I would be at a loss. Islam? I presume there is such a festival though I don't know what it is. Buddhism? Perhaps there is. Sikhism? I am pretty sure there is, but don't know anything more. Judaism clearly there isn't because they are still waiting for their Messiah.
Can't then pretend I am up to speed on major faiths other than my own, but I do thank you at least for wanting my faith to given its due moment. (I really don't know where Jesus fits into Islam, though I do know that it used to be enough that Christians and Muslims could call each other 'Children of the Book' - i.e, recognising common heritage and shared roots.)
We in this country seem now to have surrendered the central core of Christmas - a celebration of he whom we, who are Christians, believe is our saviour - and there is nothing left at the middle: just a frenzy of shopping and spending we can't afford, beginning in late summer that goes on and on and on until it reaches near hysteria in November-December, leading only to a terrible expectation that somehow this mid-winter feast will be a signal that all is well with our lives, when we so patently know that it isn't.
How many people, I wonder, even realise that the reason giving presents happens is a symbolic recreation of the Magi giving giving gifts to the infant Jesus? All we know is rampant, naked commericalism and materialism. (I know this is heresy, but I do sometimes wish the Magi had stayed at home!)
No wonder children are finding Christmas is painful and troubling. And how sad is that?
Christmas should be about hope for the world. And if it's not that then it would be better we were like the 17th century Puritans who banned it altogether.
Please be careful in your sarcasm that children do not become the victim of their ignorance. Have a look at the way you refer to children's knowledge...they are not taught to search out info on festivals, in fact, the trend for many of us is that we are taught to learn what we are told. We are partners in humanity to learn together. There's little profit in pointing the finger at those who are thinking in ways they are brought up to think.
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