A South London Carol

Christmas has been celebrated in some form for centuries.

The nativity story is recounted in the Gospels Luke and Matthew, although neither of these say when Jesus was born.

Today, Christmas is the most widely observed day in the Christian calendar, and is celebrated through various traditions, often starting many weeks before 25th December.

However, this hasn’t always been the case.

Dr Alexis Artaud de La Ferrière, 35, is a lecturer in sociology at Royal Holloway College University of London, whose research focuses on the relationship between religion, politics and society.

He said: “Over the long term, one thing that had evolved is the importance given to Christmas, relative to Easter, in various Christian Churches.

“The celebration gained popular and liturgical importance during the medieval period in northern Europe.

“Some folkloric elements we still associate with Christmas today were fixed during this period: holly wreaths, decorated pine trees, although these arrived much later in Britain, and satirical games and plays which prefigure contemporary pantomimes.”

These traditions have been mainstays of our celebrations year on year, but while trees and wreaths remained prominent in last year’s festivities, pantomimes as we know them were mostly cancelled due to the pandemic.

This gave way to alternative solutions, such as Panto Online, but this year they have returned with a bang.

Anton Du Beke is starring in Cinderella at Richmond Theatre, while Shane Richie is starring in Dick Whittington at the New Wimbledon Theatre.

Artaud de La Ferrière said: “Like all popular cultural expressions, Christmas celebrations are largely influenced by dominant norms in society.

“Because of the force of consumer capitalism in our society, the act of buying industrially produced consumer items remains the more widely spread means of participating in Christmas for us today.”

This year, the first Christmas adverts for John Lewis and Boots began airing on 4th November, more than seven weeks before the big day, while a PWC survey found more than a quarter of consumers intend to spend more this year than in 2020.

PWC predicted a total spend of £21 billion on Christmas across the UK this year.

Artaud de La Ferrière said: “The other obvious, recent change in Christmas celebrations is its secularisation, which is to say its re-articulation in terms that are not explicitly religious.”

He noted that in the UK 66% of the population identified as Christian in 1983, compared with 38% in 2018.

He said: “As adherence to Christianity has sharply fallen in Western countries over the past few decades the participation in religious practices, such as having an Advent wreath, fasting during Advent and midnight mass, has given way to non-religious activities focused on folkloric symbols and consumer activities.

“Beyond that, the growth of vegetarianism and veganism in the UK affects celebrations through the widespread introduction of alternatives to roast meats.

“Since every dominant norm inspires a counter-cultural backlash, there are ostentatious rejections of the ‘consumerisation’ of Christmas, although this is often expressed through alternative modes of consumption which are intended to be ethics, such as buying charity cards, donating to charities in lieu of gift-giving or buying from local producers.”

A YouGov poll this year found that people would be more upset about not being able to give gifts than receive them and would be more upset about a lack of potatoes than turkey.