Crucified Santa
We must give warmth, not plastic, we must give time, not stuff
So-called Christmas is approaching, and we don’t know what to wish you. Writing Merry Christmas! would perhaps be the easiest form, and we wish it to you wholeheartedly, if you believe in it, if it pleases you.
We struggle to send you serious and profound wishes based on a fairy tale invented two thousand years ago by an illiterate 14-year-old girl who didn't know how to tell her husband she was pregnant and that he wasn't the father.
There's this lovely story about a department store in the city of Nagoya in Japan. December was approaching. The manager was very keen to attract international customers and instructed his staff to decorate the main hall in Christmas style. After several days of intensive work, the creation was revealed to him: a large nativity scene with Mary, Joseph, and the newborn, with the ox and donkey, with elves and reindeer, with three wise men in the snow. Up high, above the escalator, a large cross with Santa Claus nailed to it.
Cubic nonsense has besieged our cities, for over a month, as in a totalitarian state the same melodies blare from all loudspeakers; identical songs are pressed into children's brains in nurseries and primary schools. Like remote-controlled zombies, we storm the department stores on Sundays instead of enjoying the sun and clear air with our families. A green pen with a matching pencil! How original! That's precisely what I was missing, thank you!
Our conflict isn't just a matter of belief. Above all it is a question about the world's destruction through our consumption, in the name of love: the logic in our society is that 'Christmas' is the festival of love, and we, like headless chickens, fall into the seductive trap of mistaking love for presents.
This year, each adult in Switzerland will spend 300 Swiss Francs on Christmas gifts. Switzerland is, yes, a rich country. But it is also tiny. That avalanche of merchandise produced for Christmas worldwide, with only a tiny fraction being eco-sustainable, will weigh enormously on Earth's ecological balance. Most of the pleasure given to children by Santa Claus (who is this character anyway, besides a 10M+ influencer for sparkling sugar water?) will evaporate after less than a fortnight.
It's time to think. It's time to verify where our true values lie. It's time to detach ourselves from millennia-old myths and fairy tales and to base our love for others and for our children on the only thing that matters: time given and spent together, adventures experienced in company, gifted hugs, warmth passed from one to another. Love means giving, yes. But we must give warmth, not plastic, we must give time, not stuff. Religion has married consumption, son of vice. Only when we manage to lift this comfortable and hypnotic haze from our eyes will we have a chance to survive. To live.
Change My Mind!
Happy winter solstice!
Rejoicing that the light will be returning in a fortnight.