Khadijah Ali
Santa Claus, that jolly old mythical figure, has donned his red and white uniform. With his white flowing beard—his signature mark—he is getting ready to mount the sleigh and ride through the sky. The huge bag swung across his shoulder is full of Christmas gifts for children.
The adults know there is no such creature as Santa Claus. So do most children except the very young, those below four years of age. Yet everyone pretends there is a Santa Claus. Special parades are organized in major cities across North America, called the Santa Claus parade. Parents bring their children so that they can get a ‘glimpse’ of Santa Claus.
Why are such gimmicks necessary around Christmas time which itself is based on a false premise. It is claimed that Prophet Isa [Jesus] (peace and blessings of God be upon him) was born on December 25. This is not true. Its origins can be traced to a pagan festival predating the birth of Jesus (pbuh).
The Biblical Archaeology Society gives the following explanation.
“The Bible offers few clues: Celebrations of Jesus’ Nativity are not mentioned in the Gospels or Acts; the date is not given, not even the time of year. The biblical reference to shepherds tending their flocks at night when they hear the news of Jesus’ birth (Luke 2:8) might suggest the spring lambing season; in the cold month of December, on the other hand, sheep might well have been corralled. Yet most scholars would urge caution about extracting such a precise but incidental detail from a narrative whose focus is theological rather than calendrical.
“The extrabiblical evidence from the first and second century is equally spare: There is no mention of birth celebrations in the writings of early Christian writers such as Irenaeus (c. 130–200) or Tertullian (c. 160–225). Origen of Alexandria (c. 165–264) goes so far as to mock Roman celebrations of birth anniversaries, dismissing them as “pagan” practices—a strong indication that Jesus’ birth was not marked with similar festivities at that place and time.1 As far as we can tell, Christmas was not celebrated at all at this point.”
The early church fathers coopted it in order to bring pagans into Christianity although initially many priests were opposed to the practice of celebration. The word Christmas means “mass on Christ’s day” and is of fairly recent origin. The earlier term Yule may have been derived from the Germanic jol or the Anglo-Saxon geol, which referred to the feast of the winter solstice, according to Britannica.
It is, however, to the commercialization of Christmas and the promotion of raw capitalism that we want to draw the attention of our readers. Through slick advertising, unsuspecting consumers are forced into buying gifts that invariably burden them with a mountain of debt. Advertising creates the desire to want something without actual need.
Advertising is used for emotional blackmail: the necessity to give a gift to a loved one at Christmas. Thus, what started as a false festival to celebrate Christ’s birthday (he was not born on December 25), has been commercialized to the point where people are forced to shop till they drop.
People acquire a huge debt after being forced to buy gifts for loved ones. They also get gifts in return but do they really need them or are they useful for them?
In order to facilitate people’s craving for buying gifts, credit card companiess offer deferred payment schemes but with hefty interest rates. Two credit cards—Visa and Mastercard—between them control 80 percent of the market share. They charge interest rates ranging from 22 – 29 percent and their profit margins are 50 percent or more. In the US, people owe the two credit card companies $1.17 trillion in interest!
Capitalism has come up with other gimmicks, all geared toward luring people to buy gifts. There is Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and of course Valentine’s Day. Are mothers to be loved and cared for just for one day of the year and forgotten during the other 364 days? Ditto for Father’s Day. Valentine’s Day is meant to force men to fork out money to buy gifts for their girl friends (usually multiple even when they are married!). How many marriages have been ruined when wives find out their husband’s infidelity.
Capitalism and capitalists of course do not care. They are only interested in profit.
Beware of Christmas celebrations and the gifts you are forced to buy. All you acquire is debt while the capitalists are laughing all the way to the bank.
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