The head of the Church of Scotland has attacked the false image of Christmas portrayed in glitzy TV adverts.
The Rt Rev Susan Brown, Moderator of the Kirk’s General Assembly, said “people don’t like the party being dampened by what is the reality of the lives others live.”
She added that so much “cultural and social baggage” had “entwined” itself into the festive celebrations it was hard to now tell “what is truth and what is fiction.”
>> Keep up to date with the latest news with The P&J newsletter
Rt Rev Brown, who famously officiated at the 2000 wedding of Madonna and film producer Guy Ritchie and baptised their son Rocco, is minister at Dornoch Cathedral in Sutherland.
She said: “People’s reaction to Christmas and all the hype that surrounds it can be like a certain yeast extract: people either love it of they hate it. That goes for those who have faith as well as for those with none.
“I have to say clearly though, that it’s not the message of Christmas that’s the problem.
“The notion of God with us and among us, is amazing, wonderful and jaw-droppingly humbling.
“The problem is all the cultural and social baggage that has grown up alongside the good news of the birth of Christ.
“Much of it has so entwined itself around the celebrations that it can be hard to tell what is central to the faith and what is not: what is truth and what is fiction.
“Adverts on our screens portray happy families round a Christmas tree, all smiling and looking like models, the children with a pile of presents at their feet and the dog and the cat wearing Christmas hats at a jaunty angle, curled up in their respective blankets.
“A picture that is so far from what is the reality for so many of us.
“It’s the fact that for many families, there may not be enough money to buy presents. Or a tree. Or food.
“While for others, Christmas Day is a long, lonely endurance test because it’s full of memories of people who are no longer around.”
Writing in next month’s church house magazine Life and Work, Rt Rev Brown said for others home “is no more than a cardboard box in a shop doorway.”
“That’s the other thing about Christmas. People don’t like the party being dampened by what is the reality of the lives others live,” she said.
Jesus’s birth was celebrated best when its message speaks to the “very real fears and failures, disappointments, grief and despair of very real people.”
“Donning party hats and Christmas jumpers alone, is not going to do that. Using the Christmas period to reach out to the lonely however, to offer space to the upset, to feed the hungry and look for ways to house the homeless will,” she said.
