I’m Jewish. But when I was a kid, each Xmas eve our parents helped darling Sue and me each hang a pillowcase over a chair back. The next morning we’d excitedly see the pillowcases were full of gifts, all elaborately gift-wrapped and labelled with cards bearing the names of donor relatives and friends. Though not Christians, we rejoiced in the gift giving/receiving ritual that's progressively subsumed the celebration of Jesus’s birthday. Last Monday, darling Emily sent me an email in which she hoped ‘this week is full of all the wonderful non-materialistic things that Jesus was actually on about’. Xmas is still a religious festival. But nowadays the religion is rampant materialism. Ben Pobjie’s piece in last Monday’s Age is apposite, though clearly he wrote it with tongue firmly in cheek. In truth, we don’t need most of the Xmas gifts we receive, and we’re already living well beyond our planet’s sustainable capacity. The conundrum is that the Rudd government wants us to spend up big for the economy’s sake, yet the economy won’t matter if the earth dies – which it’s more likely to do if we spend up big. These days I’m still Jewish. But I’m not a kid. And I don’t do Xmas. However the Xmas materialist excess is very much my concern. Because I’m a citizen of this planet.
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