The Inescapable Christmas Orgy?

Every year it's said, and every year it happens again. How come? It's not even as though it is religious people alone who make the point; most conscious people are aware that commercialism has done something negative to Christmas, and that far from making it a happy time, it is a very stressful time. Of course, it's all very well for people to complain about it if they/we are among those wealthy enough to participate in it without too much hardship - the more pressing point concerns those who are stressed and depressed because things are such that they cannot even participate in it, while they remain surrounded by images and crowds which make it perfectly obvious what it is all about: presents! So it is rightly often said that "Christmas = debt" for many normal people, something which should shame the culture we take for granted ... but the point is, even though we can identify the crass superficiality and poorly disguised money-making orgies of the High Street, and even though we can deplore the stress the whole package causes us in terms of expectations, yet we still do it. Nothing seems to indicate more clearly Walter Wink's observations about the Powers: see how we remain in the thralls of something bigger than ourselves, even though we know the right thing is to head for a much simpler festival. Something takes hold of us at the corporate level (in both senses of 'corporate'!!), which Wink believes has a spirituality of its own. Perversely, the nativity narratives actually give us the key to unlock and dismantle this treasure chest approach to the Christmas 'season'; for while Emperors and Governors and Kings get on with their dirty business, the real action happens where there is "no room", in an animal trough, a simple manger. This is no justification for Christian self-righteousness, however, as though Christmas should embrace Victorian romanticism plus a 'superior' sense that we are now the victims keeping alive the true flame! Instead, the nativity narratives invite something more subversive than romanticism and pride: commitment to the margins, to those who poke at and unpick the enormity of the Powers. And yet, it remains so difficult not to buy more than we can eat and more than we need.