Herald on Sunday editorial: Kindness in the air at this time of year

Have a happy Christmas. Photo / 123RF

Editorial

If Christmas did not exist we would have to invent it.

The world needs a season of goodwill, when problems and disputes can be put aside and people can remember what really matters. People, families, friendship, love.

Wait, you may say, we did invent it. Or at least, pre-Christian culture in the northern hemisphere invented it to celebrate the passing of their winter solstice when the angle of the sun starts to rise in the sky and thoughts can turn to spring.

Was that like Christmas as we know it?

Nobody knows. For the past 2000 years the images, ceremonies and music of Christmas have celebrated the birth of Christ, the beginning of the religion that has underpinned the history and culture of Western Europe and its colonies, and today is practised more stronger in Africa and parts of Asia than in Western societies such as ours.

Go to a church in New Zealand tomorrow and you will probably found the congregation more Asian, more diverse, than the community outside. Multi-cultural immigration has been a boon to Christianity in countries such as this.

Yet secular sensitivity to the many cultures in these countries would have us replace the Christmas greeting with "happy holidays" or something equally agnostic.

Their sensitivity is misplaced. Christmas is known the world over, as are its carols, cribs, the legend of Santa Claus and all its commercial excess.

To see the most excessive eruptions of tinsel, trees, holly, ivy, bunting, and chubby, white-whiskered Santas with their reindeer and sleighs everywhere you look, do not go to a "Christian" country, go to Japan at this time of year.

The Christmas spirit is universal, bigger than the church that spread it. You do not have to be religious to recognise it. There is goodness in the air. Kindness. Consideration.

Colleagues and competitors share a convivial drink, old friends and family members get back in touch. Cards were exchanged but email is rapidly replacing them. Whatever form of communication is convenient, wherever acquaintances meet, the spirit is alive. It makes us kind, warm, appreciative of people.

So wherever you are today, however you are planning to celebrate tomorrow, stay safe, drive carefully, be considerate. Help children learn the joy of giving as well as receiving gifts. Have the carols playing. The sweet songs and the stories they tell are their heritage.

Share it, be grateful and have a happy Christmas.