How many in Australia will celebrate Christmas?
Christmas is round the corner and the shopping frenzy has begun! Coming from a traditional Buddhist family, I have never formally celebrated Christmas. The emphasis here is “formally”. In other words, I still receive gifts from family and friends (though this dwindles as you grow older), go to parties, perhaps have some turkey, etc. I’m Christmassy and all just that I don’t go to church, do the carolling bits and have a Christmas tree at home (Mum thinks it’s troublesome but I’m still advocating it because it’s pretty!) So how many in Australia actually celebrate Christmas for “the birth of Christ”?
First, some facts about Christmas. It is unknown if Jesus Christ was ever born on December 25th. Some have theorised that he was actually born in January (something like the 6th, 7th or 19th). But nobody knew or could go back in time to verify and thus, instead of referring to it as the day Jesus was born, December 25th became the day to commemorate the birth of Christ. And tada! The day became known as “Christmas” as a derivative of “Christ’s Mass”.
So if your religion has any affiliations to Jesus Christ, you officially (and legitimately) celebrate Christmas! Let’s see how many in Australia can claim to do so. The table below shows the “Top 10 religions ranked for 2006/2001”.
With most our ancestors and migrants arriving from Europe and particularly the UK (refer here), it’s no surprise that the top 4 religions in Australia are Abrahamic religions and/or denominations of Christianity. In fact in 2006, 63.9% of the population proclaimed to be Christians.
What’s interesting to note though is the change between 2001 to 2006. There were fewer recorded Christians in total (although the Catholic faith continued to grow most likely due to migration and cultural factors) and there are more people claiming to have no religion (including our famous Jedis – refer here).
And the figures are sure to alter in the upcoming Census data release for 2011 in the coming year. Is this trend likely to continue? Probably. But drastically? Who knows?
Whatever the case, no one is going to stop celebrating Christmas because it has become more than just a religious practice. It would be devastating if Myer on Bourke Street, Melbourne, stopped their Christmas showcase because everyone decides that Christmas is no longer worth celebrating!
Just a final note about Santa Claus… This pie chart has been circulating around Facebook recently and I think it is hilarious and a great use of the Venn diagram…
And so, to everyone out there, whether you are Christian or not, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
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Great article Rebecca – believe it or not, if you’ve had a tree, presents, meal with family, you’ve celebrated Christmas, whether you’re religious or not!
Christmas isn’t and never has been purely a Christian celebration. It originated with the Roman festival of Saturnalia which happened over the winter solstice, and this was taken over by the early Christians to celebrate Christ’s birth (it’s unknown if Christ even existed as a single historical individual or if he did, when he was actually born).
You’ll notice that a lot of the imagery associated with Christmas (evergreen trees, snow, Santa, reindeer, twinkly stars etc.) is winter imagery from Northern Europe, not religious in nature. It comes from the fact that Christmas was a festival of midwinter long before it was a Christian celebration. Of course in Australia this is also very incongruous because Christmas is in summer, not necessarily the hottest part of the year (February), but near the longest day of the year. We put Christmas lights up to banish the night, but (in southern Australia) have to wait until 10pm for it to get dark enough to appreciate them!
And Christmas these days is largely a secular celebration. Some might say it’s the “festival of over-consumption”. You’ll find that a lot of those 12.6 million Christians have put down the religion of their birth, and don’t actually celebrate Christmas in a religious way – I suspect our Churches couldn’t actually fit 12.6 million people if they all decided to observe on the one day!
It’s actually an issue with the religion question on Census – there have been many suggestions on expanding the question to include “level of observance” – ie. do you attend church services regularly or on special occasions etc. but this hasn’t got through the Census decision making process yet (see http://blog.id.com.au/2011/2011-census/decides-on-the-census/).
Add to that all the people like yourself who are nominally of other religions (and the non-religious) but celebrate a secular Christmas and you’ll probably find that the number of people doing this far outweighs those doing it based on their religious observance!
Rebecca, I realy enjoyed the Venn diagram
interesting and thought provoking article as I have been wondering who still cares about Christmas as anything other than an annual economic stimulant. As regards the religion stats, where does Judaism fit in the picture? I would have thought there would be at least as many people of Jewish faith as there are Baptists or Buddhists and was surpirsed that they didn’t rate a mention.
Hey Deb, I did a quick search on the ABS site. It is perhaps even more surprising that Judaism seems to be the smallest religion listed in AU (2006) – Refer to Table 1 here: http://bit.ly/hFpFKN