Yesterday, I had a go at an Argentinian archbishop for telling a congregation that Santa Claus wasn’t real, but a "commercialised symbol" of Christmas. I concentrated my remarks on the first part of that statement; the reality of Santa Claus and what he represents. My point was that Santa Claus, even the paganised Santa of popular culture, has a Christian origin, still there not far under the surface; and that what we need to do is to reinvest Santa with Christian meaning, not abolish him.
 
Now I want to have a go (sticking my neck out, I am well aware) at the second part of that indictment: that he represents the commercialisation of Christmas. My question is, what’s wrong with commercialisation? I don’t mean, of course, a commercialisation of Christmas which has simply engulfed the celebration of the feast as the birthday of the saviour of the world. Actually, though, we need to understand that what’s really happened, even in that case, is that Christmas has been not so much commercialised as secularised, even paganised.
 
We can certainly deplore that. Secularisation, bad. But what’s wrong with commerce? I absolutely defend the giving of presents at Christmas, especially to children: it’s part of the wonder of Christmas for them, and if that wonder is folded into the real celebration of the great feast of the incarnation, it can only enhance their response to what Christmas is actually about. When my children were small, we split the giving of presents into two halves: some small presents before Mass to deal with the impatience of Christmas morning; then the big presents after Mass when we got home and lit the fire. 
 
The giving of presents is a good thing, not a bad thing. But presents have to come from somewhere. And we need people to buy them, the economy needs plenty of people to buy lots of them. The more commerce there is this Christmas, the faster the economy will recover, the more jobs will be created, and the sooner many people will find employment and regain their self-respect.
 
Commerce can be good, not bad. Let me give you another example of the benign interconnectedness of commerce and the Christian religion.  This is a story from the Catholic News Service.  The headline is: “Boost in tourism to Bethlehem in 2010 pleases Palestinian businesses."