We as a nation have lost the true meaning of Christmas. Several things can be taken into account showing that not many people really think of Christmas as the season of giving or celebrating the birth of Christ.
These days, most people no longer believe in Christ. In a recent survey of 1,000 five to seven year-old children, 36 percent did not know whose birthday was being celebrated on Christmas day - surprisingly, over a quarter of the children interviewed believed Christmas was celebrated in aid of Simon Cowell's birthday. When asked where the location of Jesus' birth was, 24 percent of the children claimed that Brentwood in Essex was the location. Another quarter of children believed Jesus was born at Buckingham Palace, and only 28 percent were able to correctly claim that Bethlehem was the birth place of Jesus.
If you have already lost all hope in the next generation, allow me to lower your expectations even more.
Children are also getting mixed up when it comes to the Three Wise Men: over a third of children thought that X Factor head judge Gary Barlow, TOWIE star Mark Wright, and Prince Charles were the three men who brought gifts to the stable. And the children did not think that these so-called Three Wise Men followed a star to the stable - over 30 percent of children believed that the Three Wise Men heard about the birth of Christ over Facebook. 35 percent of children couldn't even name Rudolph as one of Santa's reindeer. The average British child thinks the reindeer are named after celebrities such as David Beckham and Pippa Middleton. The most horrifying result of the survey is that 20 percent of all the children interviewed believed that Jesus played soccer for Chelsea.
And the hope for Christmas as a holiday has not only been destroyed because of these ignorant little brats. These days, society sees Christmas as a shopping holiday: deals start as early as the middle of November, and all Christmas really means to people is presents, presents, and presents.
Thankfully, I still have a little bit of hope. I was forced to go to church on Christmas Eve, and these little kids from a Catholic school did a play that showed the trip of the Three Wise Men, and they reminded me about what Christmas actually meant, so I have a little bit of hope for the next generation and I hope they never forget the true meaning of Christmas.
I knew we were slipping, but I didn't know it was this bad, gosh. The issue is even worse when you consider that many of the things that were asked weren't even religion related (i.e. The Three Wise Men, Santa's reindeer). Oh well, hopefully kids' brains are just evolving to disregard holidays in order to have more gray matter available for education (we can cross our fingers...and toes). Who am I kidding, it's all downhill from here.
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