Dec. 15, 2025
I don't like how commercial Christmas is, yet I am part of the problem!
Yesterday I realized that during fellowship time after church I just defaulted to the classic "Christmas smalltalk" questions. "How's Christmas prep going? Have you gotten all your shopping done? Are you taking time off for the holidays?" I don't think these questions are inherently bad, but I think they only serve to reinforce the concept of Christmas as a primarily commerical holiday. During the sermon the pastor asked us how we planned to keep Christ at the centre of our holiday season this year - focusing on gifts and work schedules in our conversations does not seem like the way to do that!
It's easy for me to say that I don't think Christmas should be about the gifts, or the food, or warm nostalgic feelings, or whatever else. Of course if anyone asked me, I would say that Christmas is about Christ incarnate! But do I really live that out? Is my focus this season on all the commercial parts of Christmas, so that this becomes my default conversation topic, even on a Sunday morning with other believers? I fear it may be.
I don't feel like I should be hounding my (or anyone else's) smalltalk and beating down on myself for not being high-minded enough to talk about the eternal significance of Christmas rather than Christmas shopping, when I run into someone I know during the lead-up to Christmas. However, I often think about the fact that our lives are made up of small individual moments, and in changing the small individual moments we have the power to change our lives. Is that true about society as well? By choosing to shift my conversations from discussion of the hustle and bustle of last-minute gifts to discussions about faith, truth, and hope, can I help change the atmosphere in my communities? Can these small changes fight against the commercial takeover of our lives in this day and age? Well, I can't say for sure, but I feel there's no harm in trying. If I want Christmas to be about more than commercialism, the least I can do is have my conversations reflect that!