Yes, I would say it is. Sad but more Americans drink beer, eat pizza, eat wings and enjoy the hype of the Super Bowl than celebrate the Birth of Christ. Christmas, it appears, is just an old Christian holiday that celebrates the end of the shopping season. I wonder if 173,000,000 million people went to church last December 25th? I doubt it.
However, 173,000,000 million people will have watched two football teams slug it out on February 3, 2013. They wouldn’t miss it for the world.
How did this all happen?
I think the lack of any religious experience among our young people contributes to it quite a bit. If only one person in five attends any sort of church on a weekly basis, how can we expect one day, Christmas, to be any different than the other 52+ Sundays and Holydays in the liturgical year.
My neighbor stopped over and wanted to know if my wife and I wanted anything as he was heading for the grocery store to stock up on food and beverages that he needed for his Super Bowl Party that was starting at 4:00 PM. Apparently the local grocery store was jammed with last minute shoppers. The Super Bowl is a big event. Liquor and beer sales were off the charts.
Can you imagine a large corporation spending $3 or $4 million dollars for a 30 second advertisement celebrating Christmas? I can’t. I can’t even imagine a large corporation spending any money on Christmas at all. They reap the benefits of Christmas through the 50 or 60 shopping days before Christmas and then wait for the post Christmas sales to start to clear their inventory and restock their shelves for the next Hallmark event like Valentine’s Day. I had an uncle years ago that worked for the J. L. Hudson Company and it was his job to go in on Christmas Day and take down all the decorations at the downtown Detroit store. For this he received twice his hourly rate and gladly sacrificed most of his Christmas Day. When the shoppers hit the floors on the day after Christmas, there were no reminders or signs that Christmas had ever been celebrated by the J. L. Hudson Company.
Will it ever change? No, there is not even a prayer that Christmas will come back to any significance in our secular society. I even suspect that stores may start to open on Christmas Day to handle their returns and make it attractive for shoppers to use their gift cards early. I hope this doesn’t shock anyone but every year the secular world creeps closer and closer to eliminating Christmas. I would gladly join any group that stood up for celebrating the sacredness of Christmas but no one seems willing to step forward. All we can do is pray and celebrate Christmas in our hearts as that may be the only place that it will exist soon.