Notes from Day Seven: Ruining a young woman's Christmas with gifts

Header image for Interrobang article CREDIT: STOCK IMAGES
Michael Veenema's daughter is in for a surprise when she'll be the only one opening presents this Christmas.

Somewhere, squeezed in between Black Friday and Boxing Week, sits Christmas, although with each passing year consumer splurging increasingly threatens to overwhelm both the Christ and the Mass of Christmas. On the other hand, who doesn't want a new tablet, gift cards from box stores, candy canes, a trip to Whistler, or NHL season tickets for 2012/13 (going very cheap at the moment for some reason)?

But mass binge buying is part of a Peter Pan economy that is unreal and will not last. When economists and business leaders tell us that booming December retail sales are a key to economic health, we are in trouble. We become brain-dead slaves to the megaarmy of shareholders who demand to make money in their sleep and hypnotize us with ad campaigns to make it happen. Participants in our economy are seduced into buying Christmas junk that is hardly needed with money we barely have.

And here's the punchline: the share-holders, consumers and over-indebted worker drones are one and the same. We day trade at work or school, consume our brains out after hours, and can't stop worrying about how hard we'll have to work to get out of debt while trying to get to sleep at night.

Okay, I admit this sounds a little pessimistic and extreme. But I maintain my basic point: thinking we will improve the economy with a fit of consumer indulgence this Christmas season is pure bunk. If we could spend our way to economic health, we'd all be rich by now.

Well, that's not a problem I can resolve in the next 200 words, so I'll leave that for now. I would need at least 250.

But here's the thing. With all the spending that goes on at Christmas, assuming that most know that the holiday has something to do with the birth of Jesus Christ, one could be forgiven if he or she thought that being born was the most important thing Christ did. But it isn't.

The most important came later, in his adult years. Two things, actually. First, his death somehow took care of human sin, yours and mine. To understand how, you have to know something about the Jewish traditions concerning sin and sacrifice that had been in play for centuries before his death. Jesus was a Jew who fulfilled those traditions and opened the way for the rest of us to buy into them. Knowledge about those traditions comes from the Jewish Bible, these days often called the Old Testament.

The second thing was his resurrection, meaning that God brought him back to life. This astounding event also can't be understood very well unless one understands the Jewish tradition of, and hopes for, resurrection that predates Jesus by quite some time. Again, the Old Testament is the source.

Of the three events — Christ's birth, death and resurrection — his birth is the least important.

Nevertheless, it is still very important. Christmas is the celebration of the birth of God as a human being, Jesus who grew up in the old Jewish village of Nazareth. It's the start to all the rest that happened. So maybe a little spending is in order after all, along with some partying and celebrations in churches and homes.

What will I do this Christmas? My daughter said to the rest of our family that this Christmas none of us should buy presents for each other. We all totally agreed with her. And on December 25 she, and only she, is going to get presents from us.

After we have ruined her Christmas this way, we'll find a place where we can sing and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ with a few hundred other people. If all goes well, there will be moments in the celebration when our hearts stop for the sheer beauty of the thought of God becoming a human being and living next door, so to speak.

But even if you don't get to a celebration of that kind — which you will find in every one of the hundreds of church buildings in and around London — you may still hear "Silent Night," "O Holy Night" and many other Christian pieces over the sound systems of Walmart and McDonalds.

You may feel something stir. It might not be an angina attack; it could a momentary flutter of awareness that God did something beautiful when his son was born 2,012 (give or take) years ago.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.