Celebration No Longer a Religious or a Family?.

             Close your eyes and try to imagine this: the streets of Sarpsborg the last days before Christmas last year. Does it look like people are calm, happy, waiting for the festival when we celebrate the birth of Jesus? Can you see any signs of this reason why we celebrate Christmas in the shops, in the streets of Sarpsborg? After taking a really good look, maybe you'll discover a small stable in one corner of the marketplace. Inside, there are a few sheep, hay, a manger, some funny-looking people dressed up like Joseph, Mary and the three wise men. Here you can rest, and think of why we celebrate Christmas. Finally a place which gives you the right associations to Christmas. But does the stable have many visitors? No, rather few. It looks like people no longer care about the reason for celebrating Christmas. The most important for them is to get a holiday, to buy a lot of presents to family and friends, and eat a lot of good food. Where is Jesus among all this?.

             The time before Christmas is a very busy time, especially because all people have to buy gifts to each other. This is a rather new idea when we look at history, to give each other presents at Christmas. But it's nice. The question is if the gifts are taking over and dominating the whole celebration? The only thing children of today associate with Christmas is all the gifts. 50 years ago, children associated to go to church, have a good meal when coming home, maybe get a new knitted sweater, and sit by the Christmas tree listening to their father reading the gospel of Christmas. As mentioned, the situation today is totally different. It seems like the presents are more important than the actual reason for celebrating Christmas. Just try to imagine how calm the Christmas preparations and celebration would be if we had excluded the gifts. Then the stores would have lost a large part of their income.