BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1950 WHAT IS THIS CHRISTMAS SPIRIT?
The plaint is made more from year to year that Christmas has lost its true significance and has become “a commercial racket.” To what extent has the traditional meaning of Christmas been lost? Commercially, probably, Whakatane has never had a better Christmas than the present one but he would be a poor businessman who, knowing that Christmas was the time for giving presents, did not sell all he
could. Christmas, on the surface, is, in these prosperous times, a period of hectic spending, much jollity and holiday-making and much over-indulgence in alcoholic liquor. But few of us have really forgotten why Christmas is observed. No doubt, attendances at Churches this weekend will indicate that many who seldom give thought to matters spiritual have remembered the meaning of the season. Christmas is changing in New Zealand from the traditional form which our forebears brought from Britain. Aur climate does not lend itself to heavy Christmas dinners and indoor festivities. More and more people, if they can be in the open, do not worry at all about special Christmas meals. Whereas, at Home, the Englishman digs in out of the snow at this time, we New Zealanders bring
out the car, the bicycle, the caravan or the tent, and, in ever increasing numbers, hit the open road. And who is to say which is the better observance? We are building up our own tradition in this matter of observance. But we, no more than our forebears, have really forgotten the true meaning of Christmas.
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Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 36, 22 December 1950, Page 5
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270BAY OF PLENTY BEACON Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1950 WHAT IS THIS CHRISTMAS SPIRIT? Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 36, 22 December 1950, Page 5
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