Too few views of a babe in a manger
IT’S that time of the year again. Sparkly lights have gone up, festive preparations are in full swing and it’s time to do the annual Christmas cards. I always buy the ones that donate to charities and pick cards with scenes that reflect the Nativity, along the Mary and Jesus theme, or three wise men. Except it’s getting increasingly hard to do that. What is wrong with this country? Christmas marks the birth of Christ and yet the vast majority of cards these days have stupid cartoons or trite pictures of snowmen or lewd jokes that are not funny now or at any other time of the year. Presumably this goes hand in hand with suggestions that Christmas should be renamed Winterval in order not to offend nonChristians, although that one seems to have mercifully passed from view.
But Christmas is one of the two big events that mark the Christian calendar, a religion that this country’s entire society is based on, and it seems utterly ridiculous that this is somehow being shunted to one side, presumably by card manufacturers desperate to keep in with everyone. For why? I have never met anyone who was offended by a picture of a baby in a manger, glowing rosily under a halo, while I in turn have never been offended by religious images reflecting a different faith. Even as we speak, many of my Jewish friends on Facebook are posting pictures of Menorahs. No one in their right mind could possibly object to that.
I am one of those C of E types who goes to church about once a year, if that, but I, like a good many others, want to treat Christmas as the Christian festival that it is. There are still carol services, and midnight masses and plenty of other traditional types of celebration, so why not proper Christmas cards too? In these times of national insecurity and anxiety, we need some types of reassurance and Christmas cards are a way of providing it. Bring them back. If a card manufacturer made a point of creating only religious cards, I suspect they’d clean up. ❑
IT HAS emerged that Fred and Lesley Higgins, who won £58million in the EuroMillions in August, remain extremely frugal and apart from a property and a couple of cars, haven’t really splashed out. There’s been only one trip abroad, to a wedding in Malta. All very admirable no doubt but if I won a life-changing amount – the first thing I would do is change my life.