THE P RTAL
January 2017 Page 24
Will Christmas be the new Halloween ?
Geoffrey Kirk contemplates modern celebrations
It might seem a strange question ; but not so . Consider . Halloween is a startling example of rampant secularism ( or more accurately , popular paganism ) at work . It is a case of celebration without significance . No one believes in the distorted mythology behind it , or even knows that it has any connection with Feast of All Saints . And yet the supermarkets are full of pumpkins and witches ’ hats and people throw Halloweenthemed parties at which the booze flows free .
How long before Christmas is the same ?
Left-leaning local authorities need not trouble themselves with devising alternative events called ‘ Winterval ’ or ‘ Happy Holidays ’; the general populace is way ahead of them . It is a minority now which even knows of the event in Bethlehem ( though they sing about it or hum the tune as they perambulate Morrisons ).
Christmas is a bonanza which begins in October and peters out from exhaustion on December 26 . The mince-pies and Baileys festival has had the religion drained out of it . In that way it closely resembles what the Government is calling ‘ British Values ’.
Those of us who struggle to Church on Christmas Eve in the absence of public transport have dwindled to an eccentric minority . And when it is all over – somewhere around January 10 – we notice , with a heavy heart , that the shops are full of Easter eggs , and the rest of the nation is preparing once again to celebrate it knows not what .
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If a practical end must be assigned to a University course , I say it is that of training good members of society ... It is the education which gives a man a clear , conscious view of their own opinions and judgements , a truth in developing them , an eloquence in expressing them , and a force in urging them . It teaches him to see things as they are , to go right to the point , to disentangle a skein of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant .
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