Editorial: We wish you a merry Christmas

There are of course a thousand things still to do. Pick up the turkey, find a few last-minute gifts, prepare a dish for the dinner, don't forget the strawberries. This is the day we wonder why we do it, tomorrow we know why.

In truth, we have known for weeks, ever since the streets were decked in holly and the shops started playing Jingle Bells. It's Christmas, it's crass, it's commercial and it is good.

It is good beyond belief. Christmas reunites people, friends and families, for no other reason than they want to be together, however briefly, for this occasion. The Christmas spirit is not an empty phrase or a contrived one. It infects all of us, even the sad or solitary who feel the loss or absence of loved ones particularly deeply this weekend. There is one more chore busy people should do today: think of acquaintances you suspect might be facing tomorrow alone. Call them and if they seem to have no plans, tell them you have over-prepared and you would love them to join you. It is a little thing; it is Christmas.

This spirit is something we too seldom stop to think about, even at this time every year. Most of us are not "spiritual" in a religious sense but Christmas is capable of raising our spirit above the routine of life and feeling a certain good will to all. At carol services tonight or tomorrow morning most churches will welcome people they never have seen before and do not expect to see again for a year. Christmas is not the primary event on the Christian calendar, Easter is that, but Christmas provides the most public evidence that human beings can respond to something especially good within themselves. Something divine.

Christmas is, of course, a Christian festival and no less so for being celebrated these days in places where Christianity is not, and has never been, the dominant faith. Places such as Japan right now will be awash with Santa Claus and reindeer, angels and harps and holly and the Christmas carols. The Santa parade in central Auckland a few weeks ago featured enthusiastic immigrant participants from non-Christian parts of the world.

There is a tendency, probably totally unnecessary, to downplay the religious character of Christmas in deference to the diversity of the population today. In extreme cases even the word Christmas is being replaced by terms that are more secular and supposedly more inclusive. Cards sent out by the Bush White House, for all the incumbent's religiosity, are wishing people "Happy Holidays" this year. "They are sent to people of all faiths," explained a spokeswoman for Mrs Bush.

Yet the Japanese who delight in Christmas, the immigrant communities who took part in Auckland's Santa Parade and people of all cultures who celebrate Christmas know its origins and meaning. They no more resent the Christian character of the occasion than Aucklanders who attend the annual Diwali festival of lights mind its Hinduism. Far from resenting it, they probably sense that to take religion out of Christmas, or Diwali, would reduce the rituals to mere performance and destroy something of value in the human heritage.

Christmas is the story of the baby born in a stable whose influence on the world was to be more profound than perhaps any person in history. Christians hold him to be the human manifestation of God, who was to sacrifice himself in human form for a purpose that perhaps even his adherents can dimly understand - the promise that there is, indeed, life after death.

There is no denying the love and hope that pervades the world at this time. It is a unique day, which should be celebrated for what it is. We mean it, as everyone does, when we wish you warmly a merry Christmas.