It is natural to feel annoyed when people intrude on your sacred places. When the fishing village where you spent your holidays becomes suburban, for example, or when mountain bikes charge up and down your bush valley of solitude. So it is natural for Christians to complain that the feast of Christmas has been trivialised and cheapened by being co-opted in secular society.
Certainly the deeper Christian meaning of the Christmas story has been lost in popular translation. In Luke's Gospel the wonder of the image of the baby laid in the cattle shelter to the sound of angels, and the summoning of shepherds derives from the significance of the birth. This is not just any baby, but the child who shall grow to set the people free, the Son of God joining his people.
In Christian devotion the wonder of Christmas has always focused on the paradoxes entailed in a God who is outside of place, unimaginable, all powerful and self-sufficient being localised in a vulnerable baby born in a mean place, and needing love to live and grow. God's incomprehensible love becomes tangible. Christmas is a mystery that leads to silence.
This aspect of Christmas is certainly lost in its secular celebration. Father Christmas on his reindeer sled, the transactions involved in cards, presents, food and drink, noisy music in shopping centres and at barbies, add colour to the season, but lack the depth and transcendence of the Christian story.
From another perspective, however, the Christian story of Jesus' birth points to the value of the secular Christmas and to its unrealised possibilities. The point of the involvement of God in the minute details of human life is to assert the value of the human world in all its relationships. Nothing loved by God is without value. No baby is just a baby.
This means that the customs and practices of our Australian Christmas should not be dismissed simply as a corrupted and so inferior version of the Christian celebration. They should be appreciated in their own right. To get in touch with people at Christmas, even through online Santa cards, to gather with the extended family, to take time off work, to soften for an hour or so the hard edges of workplace relationships and to donate to charities, all embody the good human values that are affirmed and grounded in the story of Jesus' birth.
Of course these customs can be purely