Let’s put the TRUE meaning of Christmas on cards
I WOULD like to express my sadness and deep concern regarding the lack of religious Christmas cards available. Last week, I received an email from the action group 38 Degrees asking me to buy their cards to help them financially. There was a choice of two, neither of which represented the true meaning of Christmas, which is the celebration of the Nativity. After all, Jesus Christ is the figurehead of the Christian Church and therefore the Christian country that we are supposed to be a part of. Instead, on our cards we get Santa Claus (invented to sell Coca-Cola), elves and reindeer (who are nowhere to be seen), and snowmen (when — here, at least — there hasn’t been a white Christmas for years). So why do non-Christians bother celebrating at all? They now worship the new god consumerism, which has not only kidnapped Christmas, but the other Christian festivals Easter and Halloween in order to make people spend, spend, spend while turning them away from the Christian faith. I asked 38 Degrees why there were no religious cards. The response was that ‘some people feel uncomfortable sending them’. I had a similar response from certain High Street stores. Why, then, should those people bother celebrating Christmas if its true meaning offends them so much? I don’t celebrate Ramadan, Diwali, Yom Kippur, etc., but I wouldn’t insult those who do by diluting their beliefs and commercialising their festivals, or preventing them from mentioning what they’re about because that makes people ‘uncomfortable’. In the window of my local British Heart Foundation charity shop there were two Christian cards: one of an angel and another of an abstract Nativity scene. There were also cards of animals dressed as Santa, and one was a pig. Surely that could offend a lot of people. I asked in the shop if they had any more Christian cards. The lady showed me the storeroom, where there were several. She wasn’t sure why they weren’t on display. I told her it made me feel like a criminal for being a Christian in a Christian country. My apologies if I have offended anyone! stanLey WiLLoUGhBy-BRoWne,
Ramsgate, Kent.