It's time to use the C word

IT'S the religious and cultural celebration that excludes non-Christians

IT'S the religious and cultural celebration that excludes non-Christians.

It drives our unquenchable hunger for consumption and fractures our multicultural society. Or so a number of corporate giants and progressive columnists would have you believe.

Welcome to Christmas 2010-style. It's the "festive season", or the "holiday period", but, please, the C word could offend.

To name a few -- Christmas cards sent to Qantas Frequent Flyer members this year offer "best wishes of the season". Macquarie Bank bestows "season's greetings", as does the card from the office of the Governor-General. Conspicuously and deliberately absent was any reference to Christmas.

"It's not about being politically correct. It's about being inclusive," a Qantas spokeswoman said yesterday.

But if the reason behind such language is indeed the desire to be more "inclusive", the intention is badly misguided, according to Chris Berg, a research fellow with the Institute of Public Affairs.

"Christmas is the reason for the season. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous," Mr Berg said.

"Political correctness has its place, but making a conscious effort to avoid the term Christmas is actually denying reality."

Leading up to this Christmas there have again been several instances of Christmas traditions and rituals being shelved to appease so-called minority groups.

Workers in a Centrelink office in Sydney were told not to display a nativity scene or hang Christmas decorations, for fear they might offend non-Christians.

Montessori Marvels Preschool in Melbourne's Greenvale chose not to mention anything Christmas-related in a bid to take "an open approach to the holiday season", according to spokeswoman Marlene Guclu.

But such a stance appears to be way out of step with community views. Wrote a reader on a News Limited website this week: "Never once have I heard any other religious groups complain about Christmas or decorations etc. It's all the petty political correct bureaucrats that think this is what the other religions think, without actually asking them."

Keysar Trad, president of the Islamic Friendship Association of Australia, agreed. "Christmas is not necessarily associated with religious ritual, but that is not to say everyone shouldn't celebrate it.

"There is certainly nothing wrong with wishing people a merry Christmas, no matter what your beliefs," he said.

NSW Jewish Board of Deputies chief executive Vic Alhadeff said the definition of inclusive "is

not denying our differences,

but enabling each of those differences to enjoy their place in the sun -- as long as it is within the framework of Australia's values, laws and democratic principles".

Also in the firing line is the idea among some progressive media commentators that Christmas gifts verge on the immoral and only feed voracious consumerism.

"There's the spend, spend, spend moralism of a 'retail-led recovery', and there's the knowledge that every fatted calf and techno-toy wears a huge environmental price tag," Fairfax's Elizabeth Farrelly wrote yesterday.

"But I'm still not brave enough to tell the kids: 'Uh, that present thing? We're not doing that this year. We're giving the money to charity.' It's cowardice and I know it. But there it is."

However, as Mr Berg points out, giving at Christmas dates back to pagan times, and is the "most admirable" kind of consumption. "It's spending that is not self-indulgent and not self-serving. It's spending for others and it helps us bond as a society . . . spending money on Christmas gifts is the opposite of ugly consumerism."