Are we celebrating Christmas or not?

LAST Saturday, December 7, we were in Melbourne for a pre-Christmas catch-up and had a walk around the city, mainly to take a look at the Myer Christmas Windows.

The Myer Christmas Windows have been a Christmas tradition in Melbourne since 1956 when they adopted a ‘Santa and the Olympics’ theme for obvious reasons.

Other themes have followed over the years, including How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the 12 Days of Christmas, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Wind in the Willows to name a few, with animation in particular delighting the youngsters.

Korumburra set and costume designer Colin Mitchell got his start in the industry working on several of these annual projects.

This year’s theme is ‘The Australian Zoo and An Irwin’s Christmas Story’ and while there’s a traditional nativity scene at one end (without explanation), separate from the other windows, there’s a distinct lack of ‘Christmas’ in this year’s ‘Myer Christmas Windows’.

And taking a look around, Bourke Street in general looks especially bleak this year, without much in the way of bunting and lights, and what festive messaging there is in shops and streets is about celebrating “the holidays” and shopping rather than the true meaning of Christmas.

However, while you’ll often hear that Australia is a “much more secular society these days” or that we need to “be respectful of other cultures”, the fact is that the most dominant religion in Australia today is still ‘Christianity’ 43.9 per cent (2021 Census), followed by Islam (3.2 per cent), Hinduism (2.7 per cent) and Buddhism (2.4 per cent).

A further 38.9 per cent ticked the ‘no religion’ box at Census time so they’re hardly likely to be offended by references to the Christmas story and messages such as ‘Happy Christmas’ instead of ‘Happy Holidays’ daubed around the place.

The local shires and local businesspeople do a much better job of understanding that while almost half the population still embraces the true meaning of Christmas, the vast majority are also happy to give a nod to the “peace and goodwill” at Christmas (Luke 2:14) mentioned in the bible.

So, if you still want to say ‘Happy Christmas’ go for it, whether you’re celebrating the real Christmas story or simply acknowledging the tradition and taking the opportunity to extend peace and goodwill to family and friends.

No one should be offended by that.