The real value of Christmas

I’m still looking out for those ‘’Christmas cancelled by PC loonies” stories, but I have to report that a much funnier new trend has been spotted too.
Can’t say I’ve ever noticed it over here, but it seems competitive parents are spending small fortunes on kids costumes for school nativity plays. What makes this hilarious is that the spending is even greater if little Tarquin or Tabitha only gets a bit part.
According to Debenhams, parents can spend as much as £150 on a costume, including £50 bridesmaid dresses being used for angels, £60 arctic fur throws costing £60 for sheep and even £25 striped Velour dressing gowns for shepherds.
A Beeb website story (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8393701.stm) quotes Ed Watson of Debenhams thus:
"The amount of money that some parents want to spend on their child's nativity play appearance would enable the baby Jesus to leave the stable and check into a five star hotel.
"It's silly and we're doing all that we can to persuade competitive parents to change their minds - it is the season of good will after all."
Looks more like evidence of what traditional Manx used to call ‘Foolish Fortnight’ (the medieval ‘Feast of Fools’) to me. Oh, and more than a hint that even upmarket Christians can be totally bonkers.
Someone should take these buffoons aside and explain, in very short words, that the whole point of a real school nativity play is it’s totally naff. Kids fidgeting, fighting and getting the words wrong, bad costumes thrown together at the last second, the donkey doing a woopsie…….
Did you really think it was supposed to be a deeply religious moment?
And you really didn’t think your kids are supposed to make people weep with the sheer beauty of it all, thrill to their delicate and meaningful interpretation of biblical myth?
No!
Did you?
Really?
How sad is that?